Poison
by sivvussa
Summary: Ozorne let his fingers drift further, past the innocent vials to the sickly yellow poison, swilled with black. Its hue had left a bitter taste in the Emperor's mouth. The traitor had to suffer. He would feel the agony of betrayal when the girl seemed to run away. How much more would he feel if she died? - Alternate plot starting at the end of EM.
1. Chapter 1

Poison

As he watched the girl raise the heavy goblet to her lips, Ozorne wondered – briefly, idly – how different this moment might have felt, had he let his fingers drift an inch or two further that morning.

It was a passing fancy, a lazy thought which nevertheless spoiled the deep satisfaction he got from seeing her swallow. Her lips tightened and then waxed around the lip of the glass, and her throat swelled and narrowed, every part of her body behaving just as it should. Her mother must have taught the girl that habit when she first latched on to the breast in her cold, mountain hovel. That mouthful of nectar was where her life began. It was quite apt, Ozorne mused, quite correct, that she should use that same animal instinct to end it.

Still...

He had toyed with the idea of hiding powder in one of his hollow rings, as he had done before when his father had needed a strong mind and subtle hand to aid his political leanings. That morning his fingers had swept over the line of jars in his cabinet, idly drifting from the green powder of arsenic to the silvery sputum of mercury.

Unlike most of his palace, these rooms were a little dusty and cluttered, as he only trusted a few of his slaves to enter. He was the Emperor Mage, not some lowly rock-slinging Conte, and his power rested in these dark and musty rooms. Even a mute slave might remember a sigil, tracing it into the dust for a spy to find some counter-spell. Even a blind slave might inhale the sweet perfume of a potion, and detect the musk of cloves in the sharp tar base.

And so the rooms were untidy. He could not cut out their tongues, gouge out their eyes, mutilate their faces beyond all sense and expect them to work efficiently. He watched the lucky chosen few closely, suspicious that they might feel with their questing fingertips the embossed runes on the furniture. He watched, and listened to the nearby birdsong, and if their laboured breathing through crushed palates grew too loud he banished them to the desert to die. He knew, beneath his petulant irritation, that they did not understand why they were being punished. From the moment their sight was gone, they could not be reached.

The girl could, though. He was quite fascinated by that. She did not realise what had happened to her. Not yet. She winced at the heavy syrup of the pomegranate juice and carefully returned the goblet to the table, looking up apologetically at the loud noise it made. He met her eyes levelly, smiling to reassure her, and asked her what she thought of the drink. She guiltily took another mouthful of the poison, licked her lips nervously, and made an awkward, polite reply.

He hadn't chosen mercury, in the end. He had considered it at length, but it seemed so... crude. He needed finesse. Her death had to be perfect.

At first, Ozorne could not decide what exactly he wanted to do. He had most of the plan worked out before the Tortallans had even climbed onto their ugly ship, but until he saw them standing in his throne room the Emperor had bitten back his impatience. He had to see them. He had to see the girl, and her dragon, and her skill with animals. He didn't believe half of the stories about her, but even half of them would be enough to sign her death warrant. If she was as powerful as people said, then she could be dangerous. But if she had come into his court and he had seen a child, weak and cosseted by that arrogant traitor, then he might have kept her for himself.

He had to see her. And when she first stepped into the palace and her arms had tightened around the bundle in her arms, he could not see a dangerous woman holding an immortal beast. He saw a little girl clutching at a doll.

"Your... highness," She mumbled in an unexpectedly low, melodic voice, and her ankle shook when she curtseyed. He barely bothered to nod a reply. His questions, when he made them, were mostly about the dragon which she carried. She answered clumsily, and without any kind of mature forethought. She was, he decided then, not at all threatening.

Then, as the days passed, his watchful eye saw other details. He saw the way she spoke to Kaddar, and the way that diffident fool began to reply. He saw the way she walked about the palace, entering his aviary as if she owned every valuable creature within. And most of all, he saw the way she spoke to the traitor.

His false name was dust on Ozorne's lips. She had shouted it across banqueting halls and training grounds as if it were a decent word, not an insult to every ear that received it. And just as she flaunted his presence in this place, he bastardised her own name, making the long syllables just as illegitimate as the girl herself. The emperor deigned to call the child Veralidaine, which courteous action gave the pretence of a full name. The traitor bit it down to one syllable, short and blunt and common and abhorrently intimate. On his lips, the word condemned her.

The plan was to steal her away. Whether she was hidden or buried or genuinely fleeing didn't matter, because the girl's fate was irrelevant. The only thing Ozorne cared about was the traitor's reaction. He knew the man too well, even after all these years, to think he would abandon someone. He would search for her, and break the conditions of the peace treaty, and then the plan would come to fruition. The girl's role in it was really an afterthought. But as the days lingered and Ozorne saw more and more, he began to see a chance for poetry in her fate.

His fingers had stilled on one jar, sensing the unnatural chill of the mixture within it. It blossomed red and then blue where the warmth from his fingers touched the glass, and he watched it with interest. It truly was a beautiful potion, which took many days to perfect. He was tempted to use it just because it was so lovely. A glass vial of it, dropped into her wine by one of the slaves, would make her unconscious in minutes. She would dream so vividly that the colours of it would glow on her eyelids – red, and blue, and red again, staining her eyes over and over with the dizzy spiral of fever hues. Ozorne peered more closely at the jar and saw his own reflected face smiling back at him.

A swirl of black drifted in the depths, and he frowned and drew back. A flaw in the potion, perhaps, or more likely just a chill in the air making the mixture uneasy. It would still work. There was no reason not to use it. The child would sleep for days, and by the time she awoke everything would be finished. She would be unharmed, and the traitor would have been destroyed carrying out an utterly pointless rescue. He could even gloat about it. As the man stood with his feet beside his executioner's, Ozorne could whisper it magically in his ear. "She is alive. She will be freed tomorrow. You sacrificed yourself for nothing."

It had a definite appeal.

And yet his fingers stopped short of picking up the bottle, and once again his reflection taunted him. The black swirl was gone, but its hue had left a bitter taste in the Emperor's mouth. He remembered the dark fury in the traitor's eyes, the wild swing of his hand as it crashed against his shield. Ozorne had laughed at the frustrated violence, but inside he was seething. He had cherished his loathing of the man ever since he had fled Carthak years before. It seemed that the traitor had shrugged the whole thing off. He cared more about the girl – about a slight insult to her honour – than he did about his criminal treason.

He cared more about her than he ever had about...

Ugh, Ozorne couldn't finish the thought. It was unspeakable. The man had been wrapped so firmly in the old Emperor's affairs that he had nearly caused the man's heir to be usurped by some interfering power-mad cabinet members. And he was not just the heir, ennobled and distant. Ozorne had been a student alongside the traitor, had shared his meals and his company for years, and yet when he needed his support to gain the throne the traitor had stepped aside. He had not wanted to take sides, he said. He was not political. He was not trying to earn royal favour.

The letters? The traitor claimed they were nothing. They were simply notes between friends. Then, on a night that was filled with nothing but smoke and candle flames and heated words, he snatched the bundle from Ozorne's hands. He hurled them into the fire, his dark temper flaring. He was burning them, he spat, before Ozorne's jealousy turned him into a thief as well as a damned fool. Their eyes met over the spitting embers, and the traitor held his wrists as if the prince might still reach into the fire and read them. The smoke smelled of Varice's perfume and of truth dust.

"Love letters?" Ozorne had demanded, breathless with fury, exhausted by impotent rage.

"She doesn't love me." The traitor looked away and never met the emperor's eyes again. "She finds it easier to take sides than I do."

"She supports me." The heir knew it for a fact. His voice felt raw. "Does that mean that you... don't?"

The traitor never answered that question. Not in words. But when the coup came, he fled. He was no better or worse than fifty other sycophants who had flocked to the dying old Emperor, but his betrayal felt a thousand times worse.

Ozorne hurt. And Ozorne wanted to return that pain. He wanted to make it even. Until the traitor tried to hit him in the aviary, he believed that his plan would do just that. But after that final insult – that proof of absolute incomprehension, he decided that he had to do more.

Pain was not enough. The traitor had to suffer. He would feel how much betrayal really hurt when the girl seemed to run away. Now he would feel the pain of that blow.

The Emperor Mage's fingers moved a few inches to the right, to the next vial. The liquid in it was yellow, the kind of shade which looked almost green in the right light. In the dim room it simply looked unclean. Ozorne carefully took out a glass dropper and transferred ten drops into a tiny, ornate bottle. It clotted and congealed against the end of the dropper, reacting with the air before he could dash the stray drop into the fireplace. In the vial, brownish lumps oozed softly into the putrid liquid. The potion had no scent and no odour, like many of his concoctions, but the man had never managed to make this one beautiful.

He would not even give it to a slave, he decided. He would do it himself.

As he watched the girl clumsily agree to share his breakfast table later that morning, he decided that he had made the right choice. The yellow liquid was not as painful or slow as some of the other poisons. Of all his concoctions it was the kindest, really. All of his anger was directed at the traitor. He felt very little towards the girl at all. A little regret, perhaps, for she would have made a superior slave for his birds in time. But no malice, and no affection. He saw her as a stepping stone rather than a bridge, and as such he had no real wish for her to suffer. She simply had to die.

And... Ozorne leaned closer and saw the perspiration dewing her forehead...and she had to understand.

He took her wrist, shaking his head at her clumsy flinch when she tried to draw her hand away. Murmuring some soothing nothing-words, he pressed the pad of his fingers to her pulse and felt the sluggish struggle for himself. She tried to pull back again, and when he looked up her water-grey eyes were frightened, bewildered. The irises were a narrow strip surrounding dilated pupils, and the emperor could see his smile reflected in those depths.

"Please," She whispered, drawing back again. "Your majesty, I...I don't feel right. I'm sorry, I..."

"Hush." He shook his head as if she were a naughty child and held her hand. "The juice of the pajeyit fruit is quick, and if you are still it will not hurt you. You will simply fall asleep."

Her eyes flicked to the glass of juice, and a strange miasma of panic and anger crossed her face. She struggled, of course, and then moaned and wrapped her free hand around her stomach. "You drugged me?"

"No, my dear." He shook his head and took another long sip of his own juice, tasting the sweetness of it without the tart acidity that would have spoiled her own glass. The girl looked up, horrified, and in that instant he saw that she understood – and that she didn't believe him.

She couldn't. The juice looked perfectly normal, and this was a morning like any other, and she had not awoken with any particular foreboding. And her poisoner's voice was so gentle that she honestly believed that he was mistaken. Ozorne stroked her fingers soothingly and explained. "You will fall asleep, and you will sleep deeply, and then more deeply, and again still more, until..."

"I don't want..." She whispered, and shuddered, and he felt her skin growing cold. Her eyes still searched for the lie, and her words were full of pleading. "Why?"

He wanted to tell her more of the story, but there was too little time. She read his expression like an open book, and he saw her remember that morning in the menagerie, and her eyes opened a little wider. Then she choked and tore her hand away, suddenly strong as a violent spasm shook her tiny body until she fell from the chair to the ground. One of the slaves rushed forwards to pick her up, but the emperor snapped his fingers impatiently and stopped the man in his tracks.

With deliberate slowness, he lowered himself to the ground and raised her head, gentle and implacable. His fingers met the softness of her hair, and the coarseness of the dust and bird mess and feathers which littered the aviary floor. The tiles were warm now that the sun had shone on them, warmer than the girl's skin, and drier, and he brushed the filth away from her tearstained cheeks with the hem of his silken sleeve. She shuddered, caught in another seizure with her back arching and arms flailing, until it subsided enough for her to gasp in a shallow breath.

"Do you understand?" He asked her, and then he gripped her hair and asked more forcefully. "Do you understand?"

"Numair..." She gasped it, and the man flinched back. Even now, holding his victory in his own two hands, that name made him sick. Was it the only answer she had to offer? She had cried out so harshly that it could have been a cry for help. Her eyes stared wildly about, rimmed by bruise-like markings which had also stained her lips and fingertips, and she still struggled to pull away from him.

What did she mean? Had she understood? Ozorne stared at her as the bruises broke, spilling treacle-thick, dark blood from her mouth ears and fingertips and from eyes which would never see again. Her heartbeat faltered and failed, and her pallid limbs fell limply against the tiles.

Ozorne untangled his hand with disgust, scrubbing off the lingering feeling of touching a dead thing. He strode away without a word, and left the slaves to deal with the mess.

Her last word had chilled him to the bone.

888


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, with a blade pressed to his throat and one slicing into the palm of his hand, Ozorne felt the grimy shiver of death squirming in his own blood.

"Choose," The man growled, pressing more firmly on his blade so that warm red blood spilled down into the dust. The emperor mage clutched his blade tightly, and shut his eyes.

This man was supposed to be dead.

After the Tortallan boat had disappeared over the horizon, a lingering peace had settled over the city. Ozorne had yawned and scratched at his dry elbows as he rose from bed, looking out across the river towards the sea. The land was already growing golden and hot in the sunshine, and the boat was a dark brown speck marring the blue sea. When it finally disappeared the emperor smiled serenely.

He knew the traitor wasn't on board the boat. He would have been able to see the man's aura spilling from the rigging like vomit pouring into the waves. Disgusting creature, making other people wade through his vile Gift without so much as a by-your-leave. The aura wasn't in the dock, either, but Ozorne had no doubt that he would soon find it. Although an aura could be hidden, he doubted the traitor had the wherewithal to manage it.

Over the next few days he watched the city like a hawk, even taking in the sound and stink of the market so that he could better scry for the fleeting Gift. On the fourth day there was a great outcry from the barracks, and they sent him a message: The traitor had been found hiding in the desert! They had brought him back to the barracks, badly beaten and unable to walk. In fact, he had fallen unconscious. When they managed to rouse him he walked like a sleepwalker, and barely spoke.

It made Ozorne suspicious, but he stood implacably on his balcony and watched the procession. There was little satisfaction in watching the man peacefully sleepwalk towards his death. He had expected tears, or curses, or a struggle. This mindless mage could not even understand the Hag priest as he reached out with his bone amulet for the condemned man to kiss. He would certainly not be able to understand the girl's death.

When the emperor summoned the traitor and tried to gloat, the man stared blankly at the floor and did not react. The wound on his head looked as if it were starting to rot, peeling back from his forehead like spoiled meat. Watery pink fluid had run from it down his face and dried into a thick, congealed paste against his pale, waxen skin.

Even though Ozorne whispered the truth of things into the traitor's ear, he got no more response than a wordless moan.

"You have beaten him senseless." Ozorne growled, spinning around to confront the soldiers. They looked back at him, idiotic and smiling nervously. The emperor looked once more at the mage, who was about as coherent as a bowl of soup, and furiously ordered that the man who had struck him be executed.

The soldier cried out in horror. Up until that moment, he had been preening and gloating about his inevitable promotion. The emperor rounded on him, livid and unforgiving. "You were supposed to capture him alive! Look at him, look at his head! You have already killed him!"

The prisoner wobbled, stared at the stone tiles, and was silent. The soldier was dragged away, wailing.

The execution was just as frustrating, and Ozorne grew bored long before the man's head was chopped off. It was impossible, but the traitor seemed even stupider and duller now than he had before. The jeering of the crowd didn't seem to faze him. He simply made his dreamlike way to the executioner, and obediently knelt down on the block.

His head rotted very quickly in the hot desert sun.

The next day, in a petulant fit of pique, Ozorne ordered that the girl's body be thrown into the river. She was useless, and spoiled, and he hated the reminder of her pointless death. He discarded her like garbage, watching the slaves heave her into the same slow, fetid channel of the river that the latrines drained into. It flowed into the river, and he felt a grim satisfaction from seeing her sink into the mire. Good, he thought. Let the crocodiles take her.

And that, as far as Ozorne was concerned, was the end of a very unsatisfactory week.

The next morning Ozorne sat in his throne room, idly overseeing his court with the same barbed irritation which had haunted him since he had watched the traitor die. The courtiers, usually so keen to fawn over him for his favours, had been staying away. They knew he was as quick to punish as he was to reward, and stories of his actions had gotten out. eHe had

He had no idea which of his slaves had told the story (he'd executed them all, since the guilty man would not step forward) but once told, the gossip gained weight. The war with Tortall had seemed like a good idea, a noble cause which pitted their beloved Emperor Mage and his immortal magic against the Conte king and his Dominion Jewel. The Carthaki had no doubt that they would win; their magic stemmed from the gods, while King Jonathan had to rip it from the earth. Even if his magic was stronger, he had to drain his land for it. In a few years famine would drain his land even more efficiently than battle.

But now... there was something suspect about the Emperor. The selfish girl who had started the war, and her depraved, traitorous lover, were suddenly tragic innocents. She had been found in the river and it was obvious she had been dead for many days. She could not possibly have run away, as the emperor claimed.

Lindhall Reed, the one who was so honest he could bake chapatti with the heat of his convictions, had found her. Who would dare call him a liar? He took her body into his apartments. He surrounded her with candles, saying heartfelt, sorrowful prayers over her until the healers demanded to take her away.

The healers at the university were nervous under the eyes of their emperor, but obeyed the higher oath they had made to the gods. They examined her body to see what had happened. They found poison, they found traces of sodden golden dust in her rotting hair, and they found the largest lie of all. No matter what Ozorne had claimed, the priests swore another tale. The whore of Tortall had died a virgin.

"We should not have killed the traitor," The mutter began, and then grew louder. "He might have been trying to save her. He might know why she died. We should have asked him. His majesty should have..." But then they bit their tongues until they bled, and looked nervously from their own windows into the dusty summer streets. Who knew who was listening?

But the story the slave told spread like fire, and grew louder and louder. Many people dismissed it as a fairy tale, because they could not imagine their glorious golden lord sharing words with the girl, let alone his meal. And yet some people believed it, and the whispers grew louder. Had he killed her? Had the poison come from the hand of the one who was supposed to protect them all? Had he lied to his people?

Ozorne, sitting on his golden throne, knew of the rumours. He listened carefully to his spies, and nodded or shook his head, and waited. He knew the rumblings of a civil war would die away in the heat of battle; he simply had to wait until the boat returned to Tortall, and he could unleash his chaotic magic into the world.

Then... in the half-empty throne room, surrounded by only slaves and bodyguards, a feeling of dread crept across his limbs. He looked down at his golden hands, turning them over to see the heavy gold rings on each finger. The stones, rich and flawless, were shining in the bright light. They were not supposed to. Before Ozorne could draw a breath, he saw the treacherous glimmer of magic on his wrists, and cried out. The magic yanked him violently backwards, forcing him into the chair and binding his wrists and ankles to the gilded throne. He could only struggle and watch, horrified, as the room exploded into sharp rocks and bright, cutting metal and screams and blood and bone.

And then the dust settled, and a figure walked through the sobbing survivors. Ozorne would have recognised his tall frame and slender build in an instant, but the eyes were completely alien to him. They were blazing, dark and fierce and pitiless.

Their eyes met, and scathing fury twisted the man's face. Growling out a curse, he threw out both hands and a second hollow roar of pure force ripped the room apart. The sobbing survivors screamed, and choked into silence. The roar of sound faded, and the gilded roof above them creaked. Ozorne's eyes were drawn to it in a panic, but the mage didn't seem to care if it fell and crushed them both.

Through the gaping wound in the side of the palace, he could see the bright sunshine burning into stones which had never seen daylight before. It was as if the tidal surge of the river had torn through, blinding and crushing, and in an instant had gutted the very heart from the shining palace. The whole complex was flattened, and only the distant screams let the emperor know that the survivors were fleeing for their lives. The men in this room had not been so lucky. It was clear, looking at the expression on the traitor's face, that no-one would be spared.

Ozorne choked, and found that he could move again. He fell forward from the chair, crouching and coughing up lungfuls of dust that tasted like blood. Even as his body was wracked with spasms he heard the soft crunch of the man stepping closer, like a predator closing gently on its prey. Desperately, he searched his silken robes for something to help him. Calling on his gift against this monster was unthinkable. But... but...

His hand met something sharp, and he gasped and coughed to hide it. Clutching the stormwing feather in his hand, he had looked up just in time to meet the hand which crashed towards him. This time the emperor had no shield, and the blow sent him reeling into a ragged pillar.

Numair saw the feather in an instant, and dragged the man to his feet before he could use it as a weapon. His own blade flashed in his hand, already stained with blood, and he pressed it to Ozorne's throat so savagely that it drew blood.

"The crocodiles brought her to me," The man hissed, holding the blade closer to Ozorne's ear. "They caught her wrists and ankles in their teeth and carried her to me. They were so gentle, but even they couldn't stop the river from taking her. The mud filled her mouth and her hair, and the fish had... they..."

He swallowed and Ozorne felt the warm prickle of sweat trickling from the man's palm down the blade. "But even then I knew her, and we took her inside and wrapped her in blankets, and warmed up her poor frozen hands and... and we looked to see what had happened. What you had done to her. I thought she had drowned." He cut into the man's earlobe then, slowly and deliberately, needing to hear Ozorne's cry of pain. "I hoped she had drowned. You could have at least told me it was an accident."

"You can tell when I'm lying." Ozorne croaked, and bit back a manic laugh. "And I wouldn't want to."

"You wouldn't want to lie to me?" The traitor sounded incredulous.

"No, I wouldn't want you to think it was an accident." He sniffed and wriggled his fingers against his own blade, his protection. It made him feel safer, and his voice took on a poisonous note. "It was quite, quite deliberate."

The other man's voice grew very soft. "You poisoned her. You poisoned a fifteen year old girl to... to what, Ozorne? To pay me back for running away from you, or to start a war?"

"To hear that pain in your voice, my dear." Ozorne replied in the same measured tones. Numair flinched back, and his voice became deadly.

"Either you plunge that feather into your chest," He spat, "Or I slit your bastard throat. You can die as a man or as the monster you truly are."

Ozorne stared wildly around, willing his men to come and help him. They were quite, quite still. Lazy, treacherous swine! He thought, not realising for a single moment that they were dead. The blast which had torn the wall of the great chamber in two had sent them flying, crushing their skulls and limbs against the walls or leaving them, stunned and feeble, to be crushed by the falling rubble. Golden statues had teetered and fallen heavily to the ground, fracturing into thousands of shards that betrayed the lead beneath their shining, placid faces.

"Choose." Numair growled. "I'll gladly slit you throat, but I want to see you die by your own hand. It's what you deserve. It's what you did to her." His hand was too still now, too determined, and his eyes were black as death. "I want to see you die."

"Die?" Ozorne choked out, almost laughing. When the traitor's eyes narrowed the emperor raised the feather, and deliberately caught the other man's furious gaze. His own expression was just as vicious. He drove the feather into his stomach, feeling it tear through skin and muscle and stomach and relishing the pain that, in his loathing and anger, he imagined tearing through the traitor's own flesh. A burning heat burst through him, and a feeling of strength and lightness, and he found great screaming laughs being torn from his lips. Throwing out his hands, he hurled the other man away with ease and watched him recoil, clutching at the deep gouges the wings had left in his arms.

"I – will - never - die!" He crowed, bursting into flight. Screaming towards the ceiling, he sped through his dead palace and tore the last few supports out with bursts of manic glee. He looked down and saw the black fury on the other man's face, the magic bursting from his hands, and then the traitor cried out and held his hands over his head, making his final attack into a desperate shield as the roof came crashing down.

Ozorne, reeling and raving in the blinding sun, sped from the ruins into the sky.


	3. Chapter 3

Numair began to have the same dream, night after night. It began on the boat as they made their painful way back from Carthak to Tortall. He was badly hurt, and feverish from infection which the exhausted healer on the ship could only manage to keep at bay, not destroy. Back then the dreams were hazy, rolling waves of seasickness and grief which made him wake up, pale and trembling, clutching at his splitting headache in the darkness.

The dank smell of wet wood and salt made him retch, and he heard his vomit spilling onto the watery floorboards, and saw it's vileness as just another proof of his own failure. He didn't want to die, but he didn't want to heal. He didn't deserve it, he thought. He hadn't even managed to avenge Daine's life, he had simply made her murderer more powerful. In his dreams he saw her eyes, as grey as the rolling waves and just as baleful. Every night he saw the sky in that gaze, full of foreboding clouds and darkness. He waited for the storm.

It came, in hordes of sharp wings and screaming bloodlust, and the whole world shook with its thunder. The world reeled from its violence, and never seemed to right itself.

For months Numair trailed haunted every battleground, searching the dead stormwings for a face which he knew would never be found. He saw that leering gaze on every corpse, but none of them were truly him. He would have known. He would have felt his revenge, heard the monster's final scream. He would have felt her forgiveness. But he never did.

Even when he was exhausted from the battles against the seemingly endless swarms of immortals he dreamed the same dark visions. But after a few months they changed, growing clearer and clearer until the night came when he could see every detail. It had been nearly a year since she had died, and when he was awake he sometimes struggled to picture her face or hear her voice. But in the dream Daine was as clear as if she were standing beside him.

Well, not standing. She was sitting at a table, every time, reaching out for the poison that had killed her. Sometimes Numair saw a goblet, sometimes the wooden beaker she brewed tealeaves in when they were travelling, but he always saw her raise it to her lips. He struggled to speak, to warn her or to knock the cup away, but even when his dream allowed him to intervene it was always too late.

The dream grew clearer, and he knew it was a goblet she reached for, filled with thick sweet pomegranate juice. He could smell the flat sweetness of it, the sour note under the bright. He watched her drink, and as always he watched her dying.

The dream gave him new details, now, which he wondered at. Ozorne knelt on the shit-stained floor and raised her head in his hands, stopping it from striking the ground when her convulsions grew more violent. He asked her something, and her eyes looked wildly around the room. For a hair-raising second she locked eyes with Numair, and she choked out his name, desperately, hopelessly.

Ozorne's hands fell away from her as if he had been burned, and he strode from the room. He did not look back, and there was little to see. The slaves watched silently as the girl lay still, splayed against the stones like a grounded insect. Then they too crept away, and Daine was left alone to die. She was still, and waxen, and yet her fingers twitched and a few rattling sounds ebbed from her blackened lips.

"He told you not to fight it," A casual voice remarked, and Numair looked up in amazement as a wizened old woman hobbled into the aviary. She sniffed disapprovingly at the state of the room, and slowly lowered herself into the chair Ozorne had vacated. Picking up the poisoned cup, she dabbed her gnarled fingertip into the mixture and tasted it, smacking her lips. "Hurts more when you struggle. He was right about that."

She dashed the cup onto the ground and laughed wickedly as a pair of large rats scurried over to lap at it. "Nosy little beggars. One of these days I'll make you mortal, just to watch your faces when you die."

Numair wanted to slap the woman. Of course he knew who she was. It didn't mean he had to respect her. But he could not move; he could only watch, as if this were a play by the travelling actors that he could not interrupt. The Hag tucked into the abandoned food greedily, throwing morsels to the filthy rats and sometimes making snide comments towards the girl lying on the ground, who by now was quite still.

"No, no," The old biddy said, seemingly to the empty air. "She's in my domain, not yours. I can claim her if I want her, and I do. If you don't give her to me then I'll be taking her bones for my garden instead, and then you'll never get her back."

There was another long silence, which the Hag passed by belching loudly and downing the other glass of juice. Numair wondered if it was also poisoned. He hoped it was. He couldn't take his eyes away from his friend. She looked so small. So alone.

"Get up." Ordered the Hag, not looking around. "I haven't got all day to sit around waiting for your lazy bones to rise."

"You could have brought me back," A soft voice said, and Numair flinched and stared around. No – no, Daine was lying on the floor, graceless and empty, and she couldn't possibly be standing in the doorway. And yet, there she was. She wore the same dress she had died in, and her hair was just as filthy as the wasted strands on the corpse before her, and yet she walked with steady steps.

She spoke reproachfully to the Hag. "You could have helped me."

"Interfering in mortal affairs? Me?" The goddess snorted out a laugh and picked up an orange, peeling it with her horny fingernails and flicking pith up at the ceiling. Daine sat down carefully beside her, careful not to touch any of the food in front of her. Her eyes, like Numair's, seemed drawn irresistibly to the crumpled body, and she looked as if she was going to be sick.

"I'm not alive." She said, "Am I?"

"Of course not. It's a rather direct side effect of the whole 'dying' thing." The Hag shrugged off the question as if it were nothing. "Everybody does it. You're not so special. If you want a shoulder to cry on then ask one of my rats. I'd do it before they start sniffing at your mortal remains, mind."

"I..." Daine cleared her throat and looked around. "Is the dark god... coming?"

"No." It seemed to be enough explanation for now, although Daine clearly disagreed. She caught urgently at the goddess' sleeve and her voice rose.

"Please! Please... ma'am. I... you have to tell me what's going on. Please. I know you didn't bring me back or else I'd... I'd..." She gestured helplessly at the body and choked out, "I'd be in... in that."

"It's just meat." The Hag sniffed. Seeing the girl whiten, she softened a little. "Your mortal shell has been torn away, and now we have to decide what to do with the rest of you. Your parents want you with them, but there's no place for forest gods in the desert, and I'm not sending you all the way across the blessed sea for nothing. You can just earn your way back, if you want to go. For now, I can do with an extra pair of hands."

Daine blinked, looked down at the table, and drew a deep breath. Then, opening her eyes, she gritted her teeth and picked up her empty goblet. Gripping it so tightly that her knuckles went white, she hurled it violently away. It exploded against the wall in a fountain of expensive crystal shards.

The Hag watched her implacably, folding her arms and sucking loudly at her teeth. Daine drew another breath, and through those same gritted teeth she said: "My ma was a midwife in Galla, not a forest god."

"Conversely, your father is a forest god, not a midwife from Galla. But do suggest the idea to him. I'd love to see what the man can do with those horns of his." The Hag chuckled mischievously and shook her head. "Well, there it is. Even if you want to go into Pigeon's dark arms you'll still have to earn your passage."

Daine looked blankly at her, and then almost imperceptibly shook her head. The goddess nodded, and then glanced at the scattered crystal shards. Her nose wrinkled in something close to approval; one of the rats sniffed at a drop of poison, his whiskers trembling over the edge of the droplet.

"Can I say goodbye?" The girl whispered it, almost begging, looking towards the guest wing where her friends must just be waking up. They would be utterly oblivious to the foulness that had happened a few pathetic rooms away. She swallowed and then a mask of determined anger crossed her face. "Can I tell them what he did?"

"They'll find out. We shouldn't interfere with the order of things. It'll just confuse matters and it's none of our business." The Hag said it idly, but there was an implacable note of command in her voice and the girl flinched back.

"But... but it's about _me_." She whispered, and tears rose in her eyes. The Hag croaked out a mocking laugh and shook her head, as if the girl were being very stupid. Looking back at Daine, and then at the body, she seemed for the first time to notice the girl's distress. There was no empathy in her voice, but a kind of resigned sigh whined from her nostrils.

"Pffnt. I've no time for weeping or wailing, but if you must, then I'll meet you at the grand temple at noon."

She hobbled out, still shaking her head and chuckling as if the girl's request was the funniest thing she had heard in weeks. Daine watched her go, looking numbly at the broken shards the god had crushed underfoot. She didn't look back at her own body again. She chewed her lip and stared at the fractured goblet until tears started in her eyes, and then she buried her head in her hands and screamed.

Numair woke up with his head pounding, his heart racing, and his ears ringing from that unearthly sound. What on earth had he dreamed about? He had never seen those details before, and he had no reason to invent them. Even sleeping, his mind tended to lean on facts. He sat bolt upright and massaged his temples, willing the headache away.

The next morning he couldn't eat breakfast, but headed straight to the royal suite and asked the pages to announce his presence. Jon invited him inside immediately, and even came to the door with a mouthful of bacon making his greeting slightly incoherent.

"Do you have any reports on Carthak?" Numair asked, the words coming out in a rush. Jon looked puzzled.

"Given that we're at war with..."

"No, I mean more... from the priests. From the people. About... about strange things happening."

"Again, Numair... do you mean strange things that aren't extinct magical creatures coming back to life?"

"Exactly!" The man exclaimed. "Anything that's unusually unusual!"

"I'll ask my clerk." Jon chewed thoughtfully. "Or you can. I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"Daine," Numair said, as if that explained everything. Then, looking a little anxious, he hurried off to find the clerk.

Jonathan watched him leave with the bacon hanging from his limp fingers. It wasn't so much Numair's anxiety that made him pause, but the man's expression when he said his student's name. Ever since the funeral he had refused to talk about her at all, save for a very bitter, heartfelt eulogy which had lasted far longer than most of his meandering speeches. Now, unbidden, he had spoken her name aloud, and his eyes had not narrowed or darted away but were nervous and quick. If he didn't know any better, Jon thought, he would have thought Numair was excited.

"He didn't find anything in particular," The clerk reported back later that day, as he wearily sorted out the detritus from Numair's search. Shuffling a stack of papers, he added, "He took a few reports away – nothing important, so I said he could keep them. Stories about feral animals, a farming census, a few reports about horses and the Banjiku. If we were actually going to the mainland to confront Ozorne then they would make a difference, but since his transformation no-one even knows where the Emperor is."

"I don't think he's looking for Ozorne," Jon said absently. Afterwards, he wondered at his own words. If Numair wasn't looking for Ozorne, then what was he actually doing? There was no-one else who so possessed the man's thoughts. Ever since Daine had died, all Numair seemed to think about was crushing the Emperor Mage into dust.

He had headed more patrols than any other mage in the country, and attended every strategic meeting he could find. Captains and generals had reported him appearing in their camps, asking for their strategies and suggesting new ideas which he would gladly help with. His ideas, Jon gathered with some discomfort, were always vicious and deadly. Before the war he had balked at death, taking prisoners or transforming his enemies rather than see them bleed. Now, it was as if a red mist had covered his black eyes. Any enemy could die; any man or monster might be close enough to Ozorne to leave a scar on that man's heart.

Numair seemed to revel in their extinction. He slaughtered them without a second's remorse. His own pain was unforgiving and just as relentless as his revenge. If Ozorne's heart stung with a few slight scars, then Numair's was raw and bleeding.

Reports on animals and farms did not fit with this darker, deadlier man. Jon was not certain whether he should be relieved or worried. He was beginning to fear that Numair was losing his mind.


	4. Chapter 4

A few weeks later Jon summoned Numair to his chambers. He was relieved to see that the man smiled a greeting; since his strange request, he had seemed brighter and more focused.

"I have a mission for you," Jon got straight to the point, because he had five other captains to address before breakfast. He handed over a message, and clapped the other man on the shoulder. It was a friendly gesture which he made without thinking, and Numair shot him a surprised look before he smiled and nodded.

"How are you feeling?" The question was asked before Jon really thought about it, and he was relieved to see Numair didn't close off as he had before.

"I'm sleeping better. The nightmares stopped a while back." He read the report and spoke idly over the top of it.

"I'm glad." Jon rubbed his own hair awkwardly and bit back any other questions. "I wouldn't want to send you away on your own if you weren't... weren't..."

"I'm fine." Numair said shortly, and folded the message up into a careful square with very neat edges. "I'm more than healthy enough to get rid of a few immortals for you."

"Be careful," Jon warned, "The courier said that these aren't like anything we've seen before. Taking out wyvern and spidren is one thing, but there could be other immortals out there as dangerous as the dragons. Even Daine caught the fever when the unicorns..." He stopped and bit his tongue so sharply it bled.

A slip of the tongue it may have been, but even saying her name caused a sharp thrill of guilt to run through him, almost as if a real blade had cut exquisitely gently into his heart. He couldn't imagine how Numair must feel.

For the first time, though, the other man didn't seem to notice. He simply frowned and tucked the message into his pocket, thoughtfully mulling over the description the messenger had scrawled there from the eyewitnesses. There weren't many witnesses, it seemed. These ones had abandoned their farms and their animals, screaming in terror as they fled from the creatures they only referred to as 'skinners'.

The mage rode out of Corus a few hours later. The journey took him two days, and since it did not take him outside of Tortall he stayed in inns rather than camping outside. He preferred the warmth, and the hubbub of other travellers made his nights seem less empty. On the third morning he saddled up his horse and they plodded towards the abandoned village.

He had no idea what to expect. He wasn't prepared.

He tied the horse up a few miles outside of the village limits, and continued on foot. It wasn't that he wished to be slow and quiet, but he still instinctively protected animals from any possible danger. If it hadn't been so instinctive he might have wondered when the impulse would fade, and when he would stop checking his trail for injured animals making their pathetic way towards his companion. He had lived with them underfoot for years, and now it seemed strange to walk alone in the woods. Even the birdsong seemed as if it were in another language, since he didn't hear the occasional chuckles and glib translations as Daine listened in.

The village was eerily quiet. The villagers had abandoned milkers, but they weren't lowing in pain from their swollen udders. Nor were horses whickering in their stables. He couldn't even hear the sounds of mice scurrying through the buildings in search of abandoned food. There was nothing apart from his own footsteps.

As he listened, barely moving as he took carefully silent steps, he began to hear another sound. It was soft at first, and he thought it might be the wind catching in a damaged roof. It had that note, the whistling, rasping sound of a low breeze. But then, there was no wind. The air was still, and humid, and even the birds didn't sing. The ground was parched and crackled with dry grass under his feet, and the hissing sound continued.

Numair shielded himself and kept walking, wishing he had Daine's ears so she could listen more closely to the sound. It was unnerving. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. Images spun through his mind of snakes rasping venomously through grass, and eels squirming in mud, and air gasping uselessly through torn out throats. What on earth was it? What was a skinner, anyway?

The sound grew louder as he crept around the side of a barn, and he held his breath as he creaked the door open and stepped inside. It was dark in here, and dusty, and he covered his nose with his hand. He was desperate not to sneeze. Even a rasping breath would give him away. But as he lowered his hand the urge faded, and the tickle in his nose faded into a worried itch. He sighed silently and stepped forward, and in the space left by his body the door swung shut with a loud, whining creak.

Numair dived for a corner and pressed himself into it, eyes wide as he watched for any movement. The barn seemed empty, but there were so many little stalls and corners that he couldn't see into all of them. Stacks of hay were torn apart and strewn across the floor, making piles of the dry grass which could hide anything.

He still couldn't get the image of snakes out of his mind, what with the constant hissing sound and the lurking feeling of danger. And yet... and yet... the door snapped shut and the sound was too loud in the darkness, and there was only a thin beam of light beneath the wooden frame, and absolutely nothing moved in the darkness.

He drew in a shallow breath and stepped forwards.

Hands clawed at him, hairless and putrid, pale and waxen, and he cried out as blank, souless eyes gleamed darkly in the dusty air. He could barely see, barely think, only see the disgusting shapes of boneless joints and hideous deformity in their pustules of limbs.

They stank, stank of blood and decay, and all he could hear was the hiss. He called on his magic, wondering how they had broken through his shield, and then he cried out in agony as one of them slapped its hand onto his wrist. Holding the man so tightly his elbow snapped out of joint, the creature breathed out a lungful of sour, fetid breath. Numair screamed in agony as the skin on his arm boiled and tore, peeling away in great swathes which were dragged, excruciatingly slowly, over the raw flesh towards the creature's merciless grip.

"No!" A voice cried out. Was it his own?

He collapsed to his knees in a delirium of pain. He heard the voice again and clutched with his free hand at the wall behind him, clawing at the wood and digging his nails into the splinters until they split and bled. Anything – anything – to keep him awake. To make him stand up, and fight, and stop the burning, the pain, the agony...

"Numair!" The voice cried out a second time, and he realised he couldn't possibly have cried that word out himself.

Pale hands seized his shoulders and he struggled, dragging himself away from another enemy even as the skinners hissed and gurgled and stank. The arms grew stronger, and suddenly he was falling backwards, ripped away from the world through the solid wood wall, and even as he recoiled from his own pain blissful, empty darkness crashed towards him.

888

When Numair opened his eyes the world seemed a little too dark and dusty. A figure was sitting at the end of his bed, her hands looped around her knees, her legs drawn up almost to her chest. She had her head tucked down, leaning her forehead on her folded knees. It was as if she wanted to touch as little of the world as possible. When he pushed himself feebly onto his elbows she looked up, sharp and shrewish in the dim light. Her movement was so rapid that for a moment he thought she was frightened, but she looked at him with a level, trembling silence which held no fear.

"Daine?" He whispered, too afraid to even raise his voice. She didn't answer, and Numair found himself breathing out the idiotic words, "You're alive?"

"Of course I'm not." Her soft voice sounded scornful, angry, but not at him. Numair shrank back a little, not knowing what to say. He hadn't seen his friend for months, and even if she had been safe any reunion would have felt awkward after such a long time. This was not awkward. This was... obscene. His heart overflowed with happiness, and breathless surprise, and confusion, and at the same time a great burning sorrow suffused each wave of tenderness and left him raw.

Daine, on the other hand, had looked away from him and drawn herself even tighter until her silhouette barely looked human. Darkness flooded through her like oil, staining the brightness she had carried in her mortal eyes and binding her heavily to the rotting soil of the earth.

"Don't ask me that again," She whispered, and shook her head until she met his eyes for the first time. They shone silvery in the dim light, almost too radiant for her ageless face. "Please, Numair. You're supposed to just understand."

He didn't understand anything, but he nodded obediently and reached out. His hand shook, and when she looked blankly at it he felt as if she were tearing his heart into shreds. Then, with a stubborn set to her jaw, the girl reached out her own hand and let him take it. She suffered his touch for a moment, and then drew a deep breath and pulled away.

Things continued like that for the next few days. Although Numair heard the sounds of other people in the strange wooden house, it was Daine who looked after him. She did not seem to sleep, and every time when he opened his eyes she was sitting at the end of his bed, so far removed from the real world that he had to call her name to make her look at him. When he was well enough to eat she brought him any food he asked for, fetching boiled eggs or braised pork with exactly the same ease.

Numair tried to talk to her, or make her smile, but nothing seemed to work. If he had been a clock she had to wind up once a day then she would have done it with exactly the same indifferent attention. If he hadn't known better he would have suspected someone of making a clever simulacrum of his student, but she was definitely a real person. She simply chose not to exist, and not to feel, and not to speak or smile or laugh.

Was this how all dead creatures acted? Was he in the dark god's realms, with her guiding him into the sullen silence of the condemned? He couldn't believe that, either. He felt alive. He couldn't remember dying, and his body craved food and sleep more keenly than a rotting cadaver generally did.

"Is this what dying is?" He found the courage to ask her, or perhaps he asked out of desperation. She shook her head, the scorn replaced by an awkward, choking directness.

"If I wanted you to know that, I would have left you with the skinners." She shook her head and looked out of the window towards the dark forest with its bright, rustling sounds of fir and heather dancing in the wind. Her voice grew softer, a little resentful, but again Numair knew that it wasn't aimed at him. She was simply so filled with anger that it spilled out unbidden. "Gods, why was it you that they sent to fight those creatures? I didn't want you to... to be mixed up in any of this. And now you are, and I don't know what to do."

"Do? With me?" He asked, wishing his mind didn't feel quite so exhausted. It was the first time she'd said more than two words together, and none of it made any sense to him. She shrugged and shook her head, and then looked askance at him, as if she were deciding whether or not to trust him with her answer.

"I don't know what to do with any of it. I'm supposed to stop it all. I don't even know how to start, but they told me I have to. I'm the only one who can interfere. I'm still... I'm still allowed. It was my battle when I was mortal, and until it's finished I'm still tied to it. They even gave me permission to cross the realms. They told me like it was some great honour. All I could hear was that... I could go home. I could see you again. But... but it's..." She shook her head again, like a restless foal trying to shake away a buzzing insect.

"Then – my dream was right." He murmured, "You are a goddess."

"They say I always was." She sighed and looked reproachfully at her own hands. "Isn't it just the most awful bad luck?"

"No," Numair couldn't believe his ears. His voice came out a lot more roughly than he intended, and he struggled not to reach up and close her in his arms. "You're _alive_."

She looked sharply at him, clearly understanding his emotions, and her voice took on a note which was very definitely directed at him. "I died, Numair. If you want to be all tearful go and dig up that body you left rotting in the desert. That's all that's left of me."

Numair could have argued back, but the pain in her words was too raw and new, and he still had no idea how to begin to make her smile again. And so he held his tongue.

Things seemed to be going better until he made the mistake of asking her to share food with him. Daine flinched away from the offered beaker of milk as if it had stung her, and before either of them could draw another breath she had struck it violently from his hand onto the floor, where it cracked loudly against the stone.

She stared at it, breathless and white, and then stared wildly around at him and fled.

"I don't eat." She explained curtly when she returned, long hours later. Her palms were red where her clenched nails had bitten into the skin, and she kept staring at the floor. "I don't need to eat and I don't need to drink. There's no point."

He was angry, and frustrated, and so he spoke without thinking. "If you ate something, then at least the last meal you remember wouldn't be the one that cursed well killed you!"

She tossed back her head and waved her hand at his untouched lunch, summoning a burst of blinding silver magic that made him wince and look away. When his vision cleared the wooden tray had changed into an ornate silver dining set.

"There." Daine growled, "That's what it was. Fancies and fruit and pomegranate juice in a pretty crystal cup. Do you want to eat it, Numair?"

He pushed it away, looking sickened. "No."

"No." She mimicked in a mocking voice, and snapped her fingers loudly to make the tray disappear. "Then stop asking me to."

"Why did you help me?" He asked her suddenly, and he would have caught her wrist if he hadn't known how furiously she would have shaken him off. The girl looked at him in some surprise, and he asked her more forcefully: "Why did you save me, if you resent me so much?"

"Resent you?" She echoed the word as if she didn't understand it, and Numair found himself shaking his head.

"You... you must hate me. Or blame me for what happened to you. Did you bring me here to say I'm sorry?"

"I don't think so." She said it slowly, as if tasting each word, and then drew herself back into her huddled shape and rested her forehead on her knees. "If I had that power I'd've brought him here, not you. I don't even want to think about it. If you try to apologise for that man's foulness I'll hate you until the day I die."

"Metaphorically speaking," Numair muttered, still reeling. Daine looked up in shock, and then smiled for the first time since he had woken up.

"Dolt. Perhaps I meant I could never hate you."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did." He managed. She scowled and reached out, pushing down on his shoulder until he lay back down.

"You need to sleep, and get stronger." She said shortly. "You can be fair sure Ozorne's army aren't lazing away in bed."

She drew her hand away as soon as he obeyed, flexing it as if she had touched something unclean. He felt sudden weariness pressing over him, and saw her huddle back into her closed-off shape at the foot of the bed. The last thing he saw was her running her thumb back and forth over the hand she had used to touch him. Her eyes, in the dim light, were soft and unreadable.


	5. Chapter 5

"How long did you put him under for this time?" Rikash asked in his most mocking voice. Daine shrugged, and kicked her feet off the edge of the barn roof.

"It'll only feel like a few hours either way." She said, adding rather defensively. "I need him to heal quickly. He won't do that if he's constantly thinking and thinking and thinking."

"So your perfect man is one who's unconscious and stupid." The stormwing yawned lazily and shook himself so his wings clattered and shimmered in the evening sunlight. "I always suspected."

Daine bit her lip and looked down at the ground, several meters away. It was a sheer drop towards sharp rocks, but she knew that even if she fell it wouldn't kill her. The pain would be excruciating but it would fade in a few hours, and by the next day her broken bones would be healed and her skin wouldn't bear a single scar.

She saw her bare feet kicking against the open air, and frowned at the black marks which bruised her toes. They would never fade. The Hag had made sure of that. She had shaped her, teaching her immortal form how to keep to the habits of a body that was long gone. Daine had listened to every instruction and obeyed in a confused, resigned whirl.

After the first few weeks she could remember how to breathe in air and make her heart beat again. She hadn't mastered sleeping or even tried to eat, but she could at least act mortal enough to be able to appear to humans and not terrify them. That is, she could have done it if the Hag had ever allowed her to do something so rebellious.

The nearest Daine ever got to defying the goddess was standing outside the doorway of Kaddar's suite, glaring at the gilded door handle as if she could scold it into opening. When she finally raised her courage to reach out, her fingers drifted through it like smoke. She heard the Hag tutting in her ear. When she spun around, the old witch was nowhere to be seen, but the larger of her two rats was baring his yellow teeth at her. Daine looked down at her useless hand, and gasped. Her whole body had become as translucent and insubstantial as smoke.

"That'll teach you to mind me." The Hag sneered, when she finally bothered to appear to the unnerved girl. Waving a reprimanding finger, she chuckled and watched Daine's form waver under even that slight breeze. "You can just learn how to fix this on your own, girl. Until you do I wouldn't stand too near open windows, if I were you."

Daine struggled for hours, and when she finally managed to make her form reappear her body felt more complete than it had since she had died. She looked in a mirror and for the first time she saw dark bruises on her eyes and ears. She cried out in alarm and recoiled.

"You're letting death cling to you." The Hag explained with a note of approval in her voice. To a goddess who revelled in age and wizened decay, the poisoner's blemishes looked like beauty marks. Daine pressed her fingertips nervously to the marks and reminded her skin to feel the pressure of being touched.

"How do I get rid of them?"

The old woman spat on the floor and muttered a curse word that would have made a sailor blush. Then she raised her chins haughtily in the air. "Ask someone else."

Months later, Daine still wore the scars of her death. She avoided looking in mirrors, but she caught sight of her hands constantly and grew bitterly used to the sight. She hadn't thought about it for a while, but now she had to think about the whole thing all over again. She was reluctant to even draw back the drapes in Numair's room and let him see her in the light of day.

"He's not my perfect man," She replied to Rikash, still staring at her toes glumly. "I don't think I get to have one of those."

"Oh-ho! So you're a ladies' lady?" The immortal leered at her, and then gave up when she shrugged. "You're no fun today." He said sulkily. "I might just fly back to my flock."

"Hundreds of miles across the realms? You've been threatening to go for weeks, but I've not seen you lift one lazy wing to go!" Daine retorted, rousing her spirits with an effort. The stormwing cackled a laugh and waddled a little closer.

"Do you want to know a secret?" He whispered in a drawling voice.

Daine looked up, a little curious. In the weeks since Rikash had landed clumsily on the roof and ignobly announced his intention to tear the barn to shreds if the little godling didn't kiss his claws, he had barely said one serious word. He had told her that the immortals knew about her, and that they were keeping her fate secret from Ozorne. He had told her that he was sent (by whom? He didn't say) to make sure she didn't interfere in their business.

He had also pointed out that she was stupid for getting herself killed before he had a chance to watch it happen. But he had never actually told her his own thoughts. Daine had no idea what he thought about the whole thing.

Most of their conversations were closer to arguments, but for all that Daine missed the creature when he was away, hunting for his diet of fear in the battlegrounds. Everyone else seemed to tiptoe around her, but his mockery made her feel almost normal.

"You don't have any secrets." She opened her eyes wide, mocking him. "I'd hear them rattling around in that hollow head."

"Hark at the girl who got herself stuck in a sandpit!" He raised his nose in the air and then leant closer. "Did you know I can taste your fear?"

"I'm not frightened," She said dismissively. The stormwing licked his lips, slowly and deliberately.

"When I left for two days, I hid in the trees nearby and waited. After the second day when you sat here on your bird perch and I didn't show up, it was delicious. You were scared that I wasn't coming back." He grinned and fluttered his eyelashes. "My tender heart bleeds, loveling."

"I hope you starve to death." She muttered, feeling her cheeks redden. He laughed aloud.

"On the fear of a god? I could sip at it, in tiny little morsels, and it would still fill me like a banquet."

Daine thought about shoving him off his perch and throwing branches down after him. It had a definite appeal. And he was wrong – or, at least, he had misunderstood. She hadn't been scared that he wouldn't return. She had pictured him on the battlegrounds, scraping and clawing at the dying, and she had thought about all of her friends who were probably still out there. They would be fighting, and dying, and she was stuck here. When Rikash didn't return, she pictured him with an arrow through his head, and then she saw Mari, and Onua, and Numair...

...Numair. He was sleeping so deeply that his heart was barely beating. She had done it on purpose, sending every scrap of his energy into healing him. Her own magic ran through his body, burrowing into warm veins and soft flesh to find wounds and scars which she had never known existed. And the scars on his arms... she didn't heal them. She knew where he had gotten them. He wore them like a grim promise for revenge, just she wore her own scars, and he probably felt them just as keenly.

"I touched him today." She told Rikash, and shuddered. "It was like touching a... a dead thing. I want so much to hug him and tell him everything's going to be alright, but... even if he lives through this nonsense, he's still going to die one day. He's mortal! And I'll have to watch it happening. It's like I can see it written on his face. On all their faces." She looked around and saw the immortal looking at her narrowly. "Don't you ever feel like that?"

"We all do, godling. And I love it. It makes me feel..." He flexed his wing and smiled, showing pointed teeth. "...powerful."

She shuddered and glanced back towards the house. "It makes me feel sick."

Daine half expected Rikash to laugh at that, or at least to make some barbed comment. Instead he reached out, laying his feathers carefully flat so he could touch her shoulder without the razor sharp edges cutting into her skin. She froze and stared at him, barely daring to breathe. When he did accidentally catch her skin the wound shimmered and healed in an instant, and she barely flinched from it.

"I've never been mortal." He said in a strained voice, awkward in the role of comforter but determined to power through it. "But the ones that were say that the feelings fade. You won't feel like this forever."

She glowered at him. "Oh, that's fair wondrous. And when I'm an emotionless shell, what on earth will you eat?"

He cawed with laughter and took wing.

888

Numair woke up three days later, although to him it felt like a single night. He looked at his arm and whistled through his teeth, seeing the shining new skin which had grown over the skinned flesh. It felt stiff when he flexed the muscle, but it didn't hurt at all.

Daine wasn't there, for the first time, and he struggled out of bed. He felt a little heavy when his feet met the floor, but he supposed that was only natural. After all, he had been ill. He had no idea that he had been here, exhausted and bruised, for nearly two weeks.

He pushed the door open and found another room, as bare and neat as his own had been, with all the furniture made from the same wood as the walls and floor. It smelled sweet, and some of the edges still seeped a little sap. He understood that the entire building must have been made very recently. He curiously looked around, and found out that apart from the room he had slept in and the room with the table that he stood in, there were only two doors. One led to a cupboard, and the other led outside.

It painted a strange picture. There was no way for food to be prepared, and there was no privy. There was a fire pit in the main room but it looked as if it was barely used. Daine had already told him that she didn't eat or sleep, but it was only when Numair looked around her home that he began to believe her. He ran his hand thoughtfully over the few clothes that filled the cupboard, and then closed the door. His own clothes were neatly folded on the table, smelling of clean river water, and he dressed himself quickly.

Outside the house there was a little more to see. A large barn peeked out from amongst the trees, and he could see the edges of a stable in the other direction. The wood looked wild and overgrown, but there was a rolling patch of grass which held the signs of a large rabbit warren. Birds sang in the trees and flew overhead, and he could smell the distant spray of a river splashing over warm stones. Numair leaned back against the building and breathed in, relishing the warmth and light after spending so long asleep.

"Oh, you woke up." Someone said in a disappointed voice. The man looked around and couldn't see anyone, provoking an annoyed whistle. "Oi, long shanks! Up here!"

Numair shielded his eyes and blinked up. "Rikash?"

"Large as life and twice as lovely." The stormwing sang out, and then gouged a long strip of bark from the tree he perched on. The tree made an odd rustling sound and the bark grew back. Looking bored, the immortal repeated his vandalism. "The little godling is with her parents, since you asked."

"I guessed she'd be back." Numair tried not to sound irked at the implication that he hadn't cared. "Are her parents far away?"

"Not for her." Rikash sounded bored, but there was a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "It'd take you a few weeks, I reckon, but she'll be back by dark. That's if they're done scolding her."

He must have seen the confused expression on the mage's face, because a meaningful leer crossed his mouth, twisting it so that the silver teeth gleamed. "Hiding a mortal man away... in her own house, no less! In her own bed! Not that she's ever used it." He tutted, like a housewife chasing after a gaggle of children, and then added more pointedly, "The higher gods may believe she brought you here to fight Chaos, but her parents don't believe a word of it."

"And you?" Numair didn't like the implication in the creature's words, nor the sneering smile that wrinkled his nose. "What do you believe?"

"I don't care." The creature shrugged, and then threw himself down from the tree and stood unevenly on the soft grass. Meeting Numair face to face, he leaned closer and the man could smell the rotting flesh smeared on the creature's skin. "What do you believe? Why are you here?"

"Daine didn't tell me."

"Ha! She told _me_."

"You're lying." Numair tried the same tactic. "Why are you here?"

Rikash looked rather arch, and then flapped lazily up to the roof of the house. The air beating from his wings made dust rise into the summery air, and Numair couldn't help sneezing. This started a peel of laughter from the stormwing, who then spent the next hour shouting down lewd insults to try to get a reaction. Numair finally grew irritated and tired, and he went back into the house, where he could hear Rikash marching up and down the roof and clawing with loud, rasping sounds at the roofing slats.

He sat at the table, rested his head on his arms, and fell asleep.

Daine's voice woke him up, sounding angry and clipped as she called up to Rikash. "If you don't stop tearing up my roof I swear I'll drag you down with my gift, and you know I can't control it yet. There's every chance you'll explode or catch fire and then I'll laugh at you so it's the last thing you hear. Or you could just get off my damned roof!"

There was a sulky reply, and a final thud which shook a few insects from the rafters. Daine threw open the door in a petulant huff and stopped short when she saw Numair sitting at the table. "Oh." She said, "And that explains why he was doing it."

"Hullo, Daine." Numair said, a little groggily. "How were your parents?"

"Delightful." She almost spat out the word, and then heaved a basket onto the table. "Even though I can summon food myself ma made me drag this home to you. She's fair set on the idea of homemade soup fixing all ills. Coming from a goddess of healing it's a bit rich."

Numair lifted the lid of the crockpot in the basket and sniffed cautiously at the soup. It seemed that gods were just as fond of tomato soup as mortals, and a cursory glance at the rest of the basket suggested they also shared the weakness for fresh bread rolls and butter. "It's nice of her," He risked a smile. "I feel perfectly well, Daine. We can tell your mother it was the soup if you like, but I know it was you. Thank you."

She stood still and scratched her head awkwardly, looking away. After an uneasy moment's silence she seemed to collect herself, and went to collect a bowl from the cupboard.

"I like the way you've decorated." Numair said, gesturing around at the ugly bare walls. "It's very... er... homey."

She looked around in surprise and then softened, her smile reaching her eyes this time. "I've not been here long." She admitted. "Until you came here I didn't even use the house, I just stayed in the barn when it got cold. This house doesn't feel like it's mine." She smiled at the plain, square table and nudged the basket a little closer to Numair. "But it is a little pathetic, I guess. Feel free to tat some lace doilies or weave a tapestry or something before we leave."

"Can't you just snap your fingers and...?" He asked. Daine grinned and shook her head, looking slightly secretive.

"This silver gift is so strange. You'd think gods can do anything at all, but it's still all tied up in what kind of god you're supposed to be. I was always so awful at drawing and sewing and creative stuff! So now, even if I used all my magic..." She waved idly at the walls and they were suddenly thick with warm tapestries, and ornate pictures, and wall hangings.

When the glare of magic faded she burst into peals of laughter, for they began falling off the walls from dropped stitches, and fraying apart at the edges into piles of badly spun thread. The pictures were even more ridiculous. Extravagant frames surrounded pictures that looked as if they were drawn by a child. A clumsy charcoal drawing of a pony hung inelegantly on the door beside Numair, and he frowned at it.

"I drew that when I was six." Daine explained.

"It looks like it has five legs."

"I drew it from life!" She sounded defensive. Numair looked back at it, and grinned slowly.

"So it has four legs and a..."

"...tail!" She interrupted quickly, and blushed scarlet. "It was its tail!"

He laughed at that, and beside his amusement he was genuinely delighted to see her smiling and laughing again. It brightened her, colouring her cheeks and giving lustre to her silver eyes. It also made strange markings stand out beneath her eyes, and he blinked at them curiously. When she caught him looking she glanced away, suddenly tense, with her shoulders squared and her hands clenching.

He cleared his throat and asked, "So, we're leaving?"

"Yes." She looked back, and there was relief on her face at being able to shape the conversation again. The relief shifted to a more determined expression, and with some eagerness she burst out: "We're going to hunt down Ozorne and... and you're going to kill him. I'm not even supposed to suggest that, but we both know it's exactly what's going to happen."

"You know where he is?" Numair pushed his empty bowl to one side and leaned forward. "I've been scrying. Reading reports. But..."

"But he can cross the realms and hide on the other side." Daine finished, looking just as disgusted as he felt. "Every time you have him cornered in a mortal battle he hides here, and every time we find him we just force him back over the barrier. Only the higher gods are allowed to kill." She said it with a large amount of bitterness and raised her hands, looking at the strange markings which bled down from her fingernails to the knuckles. "I could appear in front of him in two seconds and throttle the life out of him, but as soon as I let go he would sit up and laugh at me."

"So you do know where he is." Numair's eyes burned, but then he sat back and sighed, "But we can't stop him crossing the barrier."

"Oh, I can do that." She said with some surprise, "There's just been no point holding him here. I wouldn't be able to do anything except follow him uselessly around the divine realms, watching him poisoning our rivers with chaos."

"Chaos?"

She looked uncomfortable. "The... the higher gods are having a fight. The only reason I'm even allowed to talk to you is because I'm linked to Ozorne, and he's linked to Chaos. I told them that you already knew about that." She looked down at her hands again. "It was the only way they'd let me pull you through the realms. I told them you were my... my champion."

"So you're my patron god?" He asked, his lip quirking with something close to amusement. She rolled her eyes and flicked some stray breadcrumbs onto the floor.

"I had to choose someone. I can't kill him on my own. But it was an accident that it was you." She said flatly, and Numair had the strangest feeling that she was hiding something from him. For a moment he was going to ask her what it was, but then she looked up and said in a small voice, "You don't even get a choice. I hope it's something you... you want."

"I wanted to see you again." He realised that he'd wanted that all along, even more than revenge. She'd simply disappeared, and they'd had no hint that there was any real danger. One minute she was there, the next minute she was so far beyond his reach that he would never be able to speak to her again. They'd never even said goodbye, after years of wishing each other goodnight nearly every evening.

Daine shivered, unable to meet his eyes, and for a moment she looked as if she desperately wanted to tell him something. Her eyes rose, and then she met his gaze and shuddered at what she saw there.

"I wish I hadn't brought you here. You'd be safer with the skinners than twisted up in this mess." She said, and then she stood up and cleared away his empty bowl. "It'll take us weeks to reach him. Let's see about making you a travelling pack."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I'm back, darlings! My month away from fanfiction was for an exciting reason, though: I've been finishing the final edits on my first published novel. Eee! But it means I've been neglecting you guys to a shocking extent. So as an apology, expect updates on most of my major fics over the next few weeks, and get any requests rolling in for which ones you'd like me to work on first! – Viv

Numair proved to be far more of a nuisance to their packing than an aide. Every time Daine asked him which supplies he would prefer for their trek across the Realm, he interrupted her by asking another one of his endless questions. Finally, Daine planted her hands on her hips and burst out, "Odds bobs! I wish I'd left you asleep!"

"No you don't." He replied, unruffled. "And there's no point trying to intimidate me with your magic. Sleeping scares aren't impressive enough to scare me."

"Look, just because I said I couldn't wave my fingers and fling you thousands of miles..."

"Oh, that? No." He gave her a small smile. "I meant more the way that your tapestries fell apart. Obviously I'm terrified of your great and mighty new magic."

She swatted at him and then laughed. Things went more quickly once she relaxed and she summoned new things without thinking about it, knowing from their years together which kind of trail bread he liked, and what size his clothes should be. Numair stood beside her and packed food into a watertight satchel, making sure the heavier items were at the bottom. It was almost normal. They might have been standing in the kitchens in Corus, or in the pantry in the tower, packing to visit Pirates' Swoop or to join the riders, or simply because the summer days were so glorious they couldn't bear to be behind stone walls. Daine found herself humming peacefully, and when the man reached across the table for something and accidentally brushed her arm she didn't feel the shock of disgust which normally made her recoil. The reminder brought her back to reality, though. She breathed out slowly and then shook her head.

"What weapons do you want?"

He shrugged one shoulder and hefted the bag, testing its weight. "If there's any danger then we could decide on the best ones then, surely?" He gestured to her hands, oblivious of the way she immediately hid them under the table. "It only takes you a minute or so to summon things."

Daine looked away, her shoulders suddenly squared and her posture defensive. "Numair, I can't... I won't be with you all the time."

The man looked sidelong at her, and for a split second Daine thought she saw a look of actual fear in his eyes. She wasn't used to seeing her friend afraid, and so she couldn't read the fleeting expression quickly enough to respond to it. Still, she coughed awkwardly and shuffled her feet, pretending she hadn't seen anything. When Numair began to ask another of his list of questions she blurted out, "Rikash is going with you."

The look Numair treated her to would have turned sand into glass. "Rikash."

"I wasn't about to abandon you in the middle of... of a nest of ant-gods and hurrocks!" Daine wished her voice would grow up. She was sure that she sounded like a petulant child. "It took me ages to talk that pig-headed idiot around, and I plain refuse to have the same argument with you! I swear that if you raise a fuss he'll flap off faster than a chicken from a fox, and he'll be laughing all the way, and you need him, Numair!"

"Can I really not do this on my own?" He asked, and unlike her heated tone this time he sounded too quiet, both resigned and nervous. The girl shook her head emphatically.

"To be mortal here is like having a target painted on your back." She sighed and pressed her hand against the table, teasing out a splinter. The scrap of wood grew longer and thicker until she snapped it free from the tabletop. Then she blew gently onto it. The wood whined as if it were thawing and began to gleam, then shimmer. Daine put it down and indifferently tore a scrap off her skirt to wrap around the blade of the newborn dagger.

"I'll do anything I can to help you. Everything." She said. "I promise I will. You just have to trust me. Rikash is just a part of that help."

"I'm sure he'll never mention that I'm in his debt." Numair tried to make it into a joke but his words fell flat. Daine risked a slight smile and then tied the trail bag shut with a look which said: I know we've forgotten something...

They set off through the tress, and soon fell into a pattern of walking which felt so familiar that the overlarge trees seemed less pressing and the strong animal calls far less intimidating. A few times, Numair had to stop himself from asking Daine where she had left her own trail bag. It seemed so strange to see his friend carrying nothing but a bow and quiver.

The observation reminded him of the danger, and he set his jaw. Daine wouldn't be carrying a weapon at all, were it not for him.

Did the danger mean he should be flinching at shadows? If Numair found himself glancing up a little too often, he told himself, it would be because Rikash had yet to appear. He wouldn't put it past the man to swoop down suddenly and scare them on purpose.

Man? Numair frowned and tugged at his nose. The word was utterly incorrect, for a creature who thrived on the oily reek of fetid fear. Why had it been the first word that he'd thought of? He'd called Rikash a man before a stormwing, or an immortal, or a monster...

He shook his head fitfully and, as he had done so many times even before she died, he looked at Daine. His eyes just seemed to be drawn to her, trying to see tiny clues to the things she refused to talk about. And this mystery... had she said something first? Had she...?

...no, she hadn't said anything. It had to be something else. Something far more intangeable, and unconsciously done. The expression in her eyes, the strange note in her voice, the way she flinched away from him... Numair remembered her words: You just have to trust me. Rikash is just a part of that help.

Trust her? Numair found wry laughter writhing in his throat. As soon as she'd said those words he'd realised that he'd never trusted her less in his life.

"Daine," He asked, breaking the hours-long silence, "Why did Rikash agree to help us?"

"I dunno." She huffed an irritated sigh and kept walking, not looking back. "I don't even know why he's here in the first place."

This was not reassuring, but Numair didn't press her for more answers. They fell back into silence.

Part of him felt as though he were being selfish. Surely he should ask more? As her friend, as someone who cared about her, he had to find out about the things which were worrying her. But the selfish part of his mind reminded him of the quiet friendliness they slipped back into so easily, and the way her broken eyes softened in those gentle moments.

Numair cherished the silence. If she didn't tell him about those fearful months that she had spent here, alone, then it would be as if nothing had changed. She would be Daine, not the Hag's creature and not a stormwing's companion, just Daine. The fewer details he knew, the more Numair could pretend that everything was going to be the same.


	7. Chapter 7

Stormwings had always had an uneasy relationship with the gods.

The barrier had fallen suddenly, broken and buckled by a mortal mage who didn't seem to understand how much he had achieved, or how small he really was. The immortals reeled.

They had been trapped for centuries behind a wall of glass and smoke, which burned their feathers when they drifted too close and shone mockingly over the sky like an aura when they were far away. The stormwings in particular detested it. Unlike the ground-crawlers and the whinnying nags, their natural home lay in the open sky. They yearned for freedom and space as keenly as they hungered for fear. The lower creatures – lesser creatures, they sneered – never felt the walls closing in on them when the sky shimmered with its chaotic shade. But to a stormwing, the twilight clouds were marred, aping the fitful mask of a treacherous human curse. The trees disguised it, keeping the glow from creeping into their eyes. When it blazed their eyes were struck by a migraine that would have blinded a mortal in seconds. Under the trees the stormwings couldn't see it, but they became easy prey for any slithering wretch who hungered for flesh. It was hardly better. The ground was as much a part of their prison as the aching sky, and how they detested them both.

They appealed to the gods, swallowing their pride and going forward with bent heads and outstretched wings. It was no life, they plead. It was driving them insane. It _hurt._ Could they... but no. The divine eyes would look away, or roll skywards, or (worst of all) meet their own eyes in a disgusting parody of caring honesty. _No,_ children. This is the path you have been given. We cannot interfere. You have to abide by the rules. That is order. That is how the world is kept in balance.

The kings and queens shrieked and rent their hair from their skulls, dashing out their own flesh with useless feathers whose razor sharp edges never felt the precious give of fearful flesh. Many of the gods simply disappeared, bleeding away into the ground without a courteous word of farewell. The ones who stayed watched, and pitied, or laughed, or grew angry.

 _You break the rules!_ The ancient ones shrieked, using their own pain to make their words strike home. _You cross the barrier! You can see the mortal realm whenever you wish! The air that does not taste of metal, the sky that looks blue... you have no idea what it means to be denied these things!_

The gods shook their heads, or scowled. The worst thing was that they didn't believe a word of it. They did not trust in the honesty of these pathetic, humbled and broken creatures who had come to them pleading for help. They only saw their base purpose, as if they were still common feral brats without minds and emotions. Stormwings were made to haunt battlefields and make mortals fear the butchery that their so-called nobility would lead them to. That was why Mother Flame had crafted them, and why the volcanos spewed the first flock forth. The sky, the air, the agony of endless claustrophobia – lies. Cunning lies, but lies.

The kings and queens returned to their flocks bleeding and weeping. The flocks fell upon them and tore them to shreds.

For centuries they span, buffeted by human magic and godly indifference. And they were hungry, always hungry. The gods did not fear them; the other immortals despised them for their human shape. Despised, or worse, they struggled ... for the spidren would attack without thought, and the minotaur stalked after the grounded females with the crazed, unslacked lust of their own imprisonment. They could smell out the curves of them, their soft defenceless pliancy, even beneath the grime and the blood which they tore from their own flesh with their ragged feathers. To be grounded was to be exposed in the worst possible way; to fly was to speed screaming against the throbbing, blinding mess of mortal men.

It was a wonder that they did not all go mad, in those long years. Some did; the first miserable creatures to flutter to Ozorne's side were all half-mad and bloodthirsty for mortal meat. Rikash despised them, but his own servitude was just as eagerly sworn. Anything – anything, little mistress – to see the blue sky.

And yet they hated mortals, and mocked them, because in their long centuries so many of them had died, and burst out bloodied and squalling from splayed out limbs, and lived out their pathetic few years. The one thing that humans did, all of them, was forget. There wasn't a single human being left alive who could remember the first immortal war.

There wasn't a single living mortal who remembered the way things had been, when a stormwing might scream from the simple pleasure of dancing in the evening sky. They were once equals, sharing their faces and bodies but envying the glorious wings which shone in the sky above them. Now, dead and dead and dead and dying, they were simply chattel.

When Rikash's flock first crossed the realm, trembling and shaking in the yellow sunlight, they hid in a marsh and watched a gang of bandits stalking into a village. Their bellies ached with even the small scraps of fear, and they were too stunned to make a sound. Once blood had been spilled and the screams had faded, they could find no words.

They wanted to hate them. They wanted their centuries to have meaning, some tangible meaning. The years that felt so empty had a terrible silence beyond loathing, and these mortal men were meant to give them some purpose. And yet... and yet...

The queen laughed at them. They were so small. So petty.

Rikash's mockery was far more pointed. He found his voice, finally, and with it he spoke the truth, but in his sneers and his cawing laughter the pathetic creatures never heard a word of it. Dunlath had been quiet, interesting – a place to watch the mortals once again, and learn their new ways, and see them making the same mistakes. He had been interested enough to stay, and loyal enough to his masters to obey their commands, however grudgingly. None of it gave his imprisonment meaning. None of it quelled the empty chasm in his thoughts, the spinning darkness which drove him towards chaos again and again...

And then he had met Daine. Daine, who reflected his mockery like a pool of dark water. She had no shame. She was frightened, and alone, and yet when he tried to make her tremble she laughed and scolded him back. Even by mortal standards she was young, and it was not right that she should act in such a way. Her fear was curious, as if she could stop being scared if only she could ask enough questions.

That was it. She listened to his answers. When Rikash spoke, the little mortal girl heard him. He found himself telling her more and more, goading her into turning away. Unlike Maura, she didn't need to be protected. She asked about his affection for the other child as if it were perfectly rational, but she never seemed to see herself as another such child. When she protected Maura instead of herself, Rikash realised that he was beginning to see her as an equal. He couldn't hate her. He watched her with the same curiosity as she spoke to him, and eventually the questions turned into a mutual respect.

A grudging respect. She left Dunlath with her mortal tribe, and Rikash told himself that she would die soon. All mortals died quickly. Stormwings joked about it every time a mortal gave them a pompous command or strode away, as Tristan had liked to do. _He's off to enjoy the sunshine. Only gets a few more summers before he gets buried in a box, poor precious mortal..._

Daine had left the valley, and Rikash heard the others in his flock making the usual jokes. For a moment, with sickening passion, he wished they would choke on their words. He realised in that moment that if the girl died, he would regret it. He wanted to see her again. He wanted to see her living her life, rather than thinking about her ending it. And so he took wing, and turned away from madness and chaos, and for a few years...

She grew taller, and more thoughtful, and her magic grew more powerful, and every slight change rang like death bells in Rikash's ears. He mocked her mercilessly every time they spoke, until tears started in her eyes and she had to dash them away before he saw them.

The tremors of fear and hate that those tears brought forth tasted like sweet honey. When Rikash was out of eyeshot he spat out the taste and gagged on his hunger. Curses, he wanted more from her. He wanted to taste her screams and her agony until he was sated. He wanted to forget this sweetness or gorge himself on it until he was sick. He would slit her throat in a minute and die at the hands of her friends if it would make him feel normal again.

He ravaged the battlegrounds and fought like a demon, losing himself in the war and smearing himself with its filth until surely, surely, she would look at him in horror and see a monster instead of her equal. He sped from the siege camp to the battlements and landed beside her, knowing she wouldn't fire an arrow into his heart even though she was poised to fire. He landed, clumsy on his claws and out of breath, and bared his teeth.

"They screamed." He cawed, and laughed hollowly. His chest heaved and his stomach felt bloated and sickened. Daine hesitated and lowered the bow. Her eyes were shadowed with tiredness and exhaustion, and her tunic was grimy with shit from the frightened animals who had come to her to be healed.

"Rikash," She said, and put the bow down slowly. When she stood up and walked up to him Rikash felt the familiar tremble of her fear, and fought back the urge to vomit. Finally she was afraid of him, he told himself. Finally, she would set him free. She walked towards him with shaking steps and he glared at her. Swallowing, the girl stopped in her tracks.

"You're hurt," She looked at the ground, at her shaking hands. "I don't know if I can heal you. You're more human than the rest of the people."

He flinched and actually fell back a step. "I don't want your pathetic magic! Save it for all those miserable rats who keep saving your skin."

She looked up then, and in her tired eyes there was a sharpness he hadn't seen before. "Then why are you here? If you want to bother me then save it for when I've had a good night's sleep, Rikash."

The stormwing shrugged largely. "I thought you might be lazy enough to be giving up for the night. So I figured I might find out where your bedroom is, shriek you a lullabye through the window..."

Daine reddened and for a split second the immortal felt embarrassed himself, as if he had broken some taboo only the girl seemed to care about. Then she shook her head, smiled slightly as if at some internal joke, and planted her hands on her hips.

"You are actually hurt, Rikash. Are you too stupid to notice when it's your own blood you're soaked in?" She laughed lightly and returned to her sentry post, digging something out of the pocket in her quiver. Rikash stood in stunned surprise as she wrapped the bandage firmly around his arm and tied it shut. Against his filthy flesh the clean fabric looked ridiculous, and he mentally vowed to tear it off before anyone saw it.

Then he felt something against his cheek, and realised that she had reached up and touched his face. A frown crossed her lips, and before he found the words to scream at her to back off she said, "You look so tired, Rikash. You need to sleep. I'm afraid you'll get sick. Then who will tell me I'm getting lazy?"

She really was afraid, too. Rikash could feel it, dancing in the air like the smell of burning sugar. He licked his lips and shook off her hand. She gave him one last worried look before drawing it fully away.

It was one of the last times he ever saw her. He remembered afterwards, when he heard the news from Carthak, that he had torn the bandage off and hurled it into the battleground mire with a cawing laugh.

He had known that she was watching. He had wanted her to see. He didn't know why.


	8. Chapter 8

For the first few uneventful nights of their journey Numair would hear Daine and Rikash speaking in low voices as he fell asleep, but if he raised his head or turned over in his bedroll they would stop talking entirely until they thought he was sleeping again.

The part of his mind which still knew and trusted Daine was grateful for the way she kept the fractious immortal quiet so that he could sleep peacefully. The problem was that half of his mind was still caught up in the odd dreamlike fever which made everything feel unsteady and false in this strange, magical realm. He didn't know what they were talking about, and sometimes his dreams were so full of suspicion that he woke up irrationally angry at them both for not needing to rub sleep from their eyes. He had never been a morning person, but as his dreams grew worse his morning greetings became almost non-existant.

On the third day they were passing through a thick copse of trees beside a shallow ravine which led to a river. They could hear Rikash cursing behind them, and then there was a crashing sound as he broke through the tree cover and began to fly above them. Daine hid a smile and raised an eyebrow at Numair. "He's not hurt, he's only cursing because he doesn't want to miss anything."

"Like what?" Numair asked, sharing the joke. "Is this where we hide away and explore the underground caves?"

Daine shook her head, laughing. "I guess you've not heard them, but most every divine creature we've passed has been whispering about us three. Rikash has been fair basking in the attention. He'll be sulking when he gets back."

"How much further is it?" Numair asked, peering ahead into the impenetrable green. Daine pointed towards the sun, and then a little to the left.

"The trees end in a few miles, and then there's a marsh, and some more trees before we start to climb the mountains. Once we're up there you'll be able to see the desert. And yes, the caves! Last I heard, Ozorne was..." She stopped speaking suddenly and held up a hand. "Did you hear that?"

Numair had heard something – an odd, echoing gibbering. It was odd, because the sound should not have sounded so hollow amongst the blanketing leaves, but the glottal echoes throbbed in their ears until both he and Daine clapped their hands to the sides of their heads to block out the sound.

"What is it?" Numair yelled. Daine read his lips, and shook her head desperately. Lowering her hands with a wince, she notched an arrow to her bow and crouched down, ready to draw it back in a heartbeat. Numair gathered the power from the air around them, feeling it pulse in his fingertips far more potently than any magic in the mortal realm. He drew a deep breath and span around. The sound was so loud they couldn't even tell which direction it was coming from.

They saw it first – the almighty crash of silver and red and flesh which was Rikash, hurled to the ground from the sky. He fell so heavily his claws scored deep rivets in the mud, and when he crawled to his feet Daine was already firing. Numair cast a shield around the swearing immortal and then turned his blazing hands to the sky, but the attack came from the trees.

It screamed down without warning, a grey and brown creature which seemed to leap from the tree itself. Long, blunt incisors peeked from its mouth, dripping with a black waxy fluid. Numair scorched it, reeling from the stink of burned fur, and turned to the next one.

They came in swathes, swinging on long arms from the trees with the oily black liquid seeping from their mouths and paws. "Chaos!" Daine cried, and fired again. Numair gritted his teeth and took out two of them with a bolt of pure, furious energy. Chaos. These were Ozorne's creatures: ape like monsters which bled with the sickening colours of oil.

A weight thudded into his back, and he rolled just as the creature tore at his tunic with horribly blunt claws. Hot wetness dripped down his spine, and he hoped it was blood rather than that disgusting muck. Then he was on his feet again, struggling with the tatters of his shirt, and Daine was dragging the dead creature away from him.

"Thank you!" He gasped, and drew his belt knife in case another one came close. Daine nodded and span around with another arrow, but before she could notch it she froze. An icy stillness crossed her face for a moment, and the bow and arrow fell from her fingers. Before Numair could even reach out to her, she had vanished into thin air.

"Daine!" Numair shouted, but he knew she had completely gone. Growling a curse he returned to the fight, thanking whichever gods were out there that most of the gibbering creatures had either fled or dissolved into that oily murk. Finally the last creature turned tail and sped away, yammering mockingly as it darted through the trees.

Numair threw his dagger after it, the action more petulant than sincere. Who cared if he couldn't find it again? He thought as he watched it tumble down the slope towards the ravine. Daine could make a new one in seconds, if she could be bothered.

His adrenalin, with no more enemies to sate itself on, turned to the girl. Why had she disappeared? Why would she just vanish like that, without a single word, when she was needed? He growled a curse and dove into the trees to retrieve his weapon. Who knew if Daine would come back at all? He couldn't trust her any further than he could throw the knife... which, he found to his irritation, had only been a few feet, and it had landed handle-down. It wouldn't have hurt a fly.

A harsh cackle made him jump, and he glared up at the stormwing who had landed in the branches above him. Rikash's sharp claws tore shreds from the trees, but for once Numair couldn't be bothered covering his head from the splinters. They were both already covered in blood, and he was too angry to feel any pain.

"Why did she leave us?" He demanded, cutting off the stormwing's laughter with his sharp words. "I know you know!"

Rikash sniffed and raised his arm to study a long gash. "She's off godding."

"Godding." Numair echoed the ridiculous word whose implication would, a month ago, have made him reel with awe. Now it just sounded like an excuse. Gods were powerful, and controlled. They were the ones who made decisions, and then they watched mortals squirm like ants. Numair had never felt more like an insect in his life. "Is she playing with us?"

Rikash's expression faltered, and for the first time he seemed unsure of his answer. The usual coarse tone wasn't quite as strong as he seemed to hope for, and he scowled. "You really don't know anything about her, do you?"

"She won't _tell_ me anything!" Numair cleaned off the blade and sheathed it with a furious motion. There was a cracking sound, and before he realised what was happening the immortal had crashed down through the branches to the forest floor.

"You keep treating her like you don't remember who she is, so of course she doesn't talk to you." He said scornfully. "You even look worried when you say 'good morning', and it takes a special kind of idiot to mess up those words. I tell you she's off being a god and you act like she's doing it to spite you!" He spat on the ground and then, slowly, his sharp mouth moved into a sly smile. "Go and take a good long look at your stupid self in the river. Who knows – you might find your answers!"

Numair raised his head to make a retort, and had to throw himself to one side to dodge the sudden flurry of sharp feathers when Rikash took flight. Swearing broadly, the man dusted the new shower of twigs from his shoulders and raked splinters from his hair. He suspected a trick – because what else could it be? – but he found himself heading towards the river regardless. There wasn't anything else he could do except wait for either Daine or Rikash to come back and decide on their next path, and so he crouched down in the soft sand of the riverbank and combed water through his hair with his fingertips. It dripped down brown and red with blood and dirt, and made a murky cloud in the still shallows. The man frowned and span the water with his fingers, sure that some spiteful river sprites would curse him for making their home so filthy. It would be a perfect end to a perfect day.

The murkiness span with his fingers and then stilled again. Numair frowned and leaned forwards, his long nose almost touching the surface. The colours ebbed from red and brown to green, and blue, and...

... and the image span again, so quickly he felt dizzy. He reached out a hand to steady himself and planted it into the shallow water. The splash was too loud, too musical, and in its roaring note he heard...

... voices. Screaming voices, and the fogged water bled into the shape of a house. A small house with one sagging wall slanting to the side, its door rotted by frosts and thaws, its garden wild and overgrown with herbs and choking vegetables. The water roared, and Numair heard the screaming twist itself into words. A man was shouting at a woman, who screamed back – not an argument, but a fight. The man's voice was harsh, accusatory, while the woman begged and sobbed for him to listen to her and to calm down.

And then... there was a shape standing in the garden. One second the path was empty, and the next moment, a woman was standing there. She shimmered and changed with the garden, and Numair realised that she was translucent. The petals and leaves shone through her slight body like jewels, and she moved along the path without disturbing a single twig. A veil covered her face and hair, but Numair knew that it was Daine. He recognised the cautious gentleness in the way she walked, and the trained stealth in the way she leaned against the wall and listened to the angry words inside. He could not see her expression.

The woman's screaming voice rose to a peak, and was cut off with a sharp smack. A third voice – younger and higher – started screaming, and another abrupt sound cut it off. Numair watched Daine, willing her to move, to help, but she was perfectly still. Her head was lowered as if she were weary, and her hands were clasped together so tightly the knuckles looked almost blue.

The door of the house burst open, and a tiny shape darted out into the garden. It fled, muffling its sobs, and ran until its pudgy legs gave way under it. Numair felt that he could have reached out and touched the little boy's curls, but the whole thing was simply an image to him. He could neither touch or be heard.

The boy buried his face in his hands, lay in the dirt, and sobbed. Behind him, moving like silk in the breeze, Daine stepped forward. Her hands lifted to the edge of her veil, and she drew it away to reveal the long, soft features of a barnyard cat. Shrinking down onto all fours, she padded forwards until she reached the boy and climbed onto his elbow, mewing and pawing at his ear until he looked up. The child gasped in a sob and grabbed at her, cuddling the tiny brown cat close and sobbing into her fur.

Daine purred gently and nestled into his throat, her paws soft and her claws sheathed. Her arms moved with oddly clumsy gestures, padding against the boy's face. At first Numair thought that she was struggling to keep up the animal's shape, but then he saw the sheen of her silver magic ebbing into a new bruise which had darkened the child's eye.

"Kitty." The boy burbled, and Daine mewed gently. She stayed there, warm and comforting, until the child's desperate sobbing had eased and he was hiccoughing back his fear. Then Daine drew away slowly, making sure that he wouldn't begin crying again.

Her eyes abruptly flicked up, silver and opalescent, and when they connected with Numair's he felt a dart of pain shoot through his head like a shard of ice. Crying out, he dragged his eyes away, to find himself staggering back from the cold water of the river and into the mud. He knew without looking that Rikash was there, watching him.

"Why didn't she do anything?" He gasped, thinking of the boy left alone with his monstrous father in that remote house. "Why...?"

"Daine's not allowed to interfere with mortals." Rikash drawled, as if he were pointing out the obvious. "She's supposed to just understand."

Numair sat back and rubbed his aching head. "That's the first thing she said to me when I... when I asked her what happened to her."

"It's her rule. She has to follow it. The Graveyard Hag got to decide what kind of goddess she would be and... well, she has a sense of humour that makes mine look innocent."

The man shook his head, his mind still reeling from what he had seen. "So Daine's not an animal goddess? She's the goddess of... of the wronged?"

"I guess you could call it that." The stormwing looked unusually sober. "And it's more of an answer than Daine could give you herself. She still doesn't understand that she's cursed. The gods are..." He cleared his throat, looking around a little guiltily, and then shrugged and carried on with bravado:

"They needed someone to empathise with the helpless. A patron for people who have no way of... of helping themselves. The ones who plead for someone, anyone, to just listen to them and let them cry. How can the true gods understand how that feels?" He scoffed and made a rude gesture to the sky. "They're so full of power they think helplessness is being tied to one continent when their brothers have two. And so when your little magelet fell into their loving arms, what do you think they said? Did they say, here's a mortal famed for her wild magic? Here's a gift for the farming gods? However hard her parents begged, the Hag had the final say, and she just adores her little jokes, the bitch."

"But that's not who Daine was... is!" Numair nearly kicked himself for the stumble, and rushed into his next few words. "Do you mean they chose her just based on the way she was killed?"

Rikash shrugged. "I mean that she has to see other people, every day, being just as hurt and broken as she was by evil mortal men and women, every day until the sky burns out. And she isn't allowed to do a single thing to help them. She can only be with them, and comfort them, until it's all over." He glared at the man then, and his eyes were so accusing that Numair took a sharp breath. "It's your fault. She reached out for you with her last dying thought. It was all she wanted, and the Hag drank that wish from her like wine."

Numair stared at him, and Rikash felt the emotion pouring from the man's heart as if he had felt it himself. Guilt, and tearing pain, and then the mortal had collapsed to his knees and buried his face in his hands, rocking back and forth and muffling his cries with clenched fingers even as tears streamed from his eyes unchecked. It was a weakness in the man's mortal body, the stormwing told himself, that made his knees crumple beneath him and such wretched animal sounds to pour from his mouth. And yet he could not relish it.

Rikash had driven the man to depths of despair that would have sated his empty stomach for a month, but the thought of consuming this man's sorrow made bile rise in Rikash's throat. It was the same feeling he dreaded around Daine, he realised. For some ridiculous reason, his life had become entwined with both of theirs. And they both felt things so keenly that it was indecent. To a stormwing they were exposed, more than naked: two raw nerves ready to be torn to shreds. It was too easy, and too disgusting, like slaughtering blind mewling kittens for their meat. In that instant Rikash hated himself for goading the mortal man.

Daine would return soon, and she would know that she had been spied on. She would feel angry, and betrayed – the sweet, delicate citrus tastes with the delightfully sharp bite to them. Rikash tried his best not to retch. _Gods, what is wrong with me?_ He demanded. His sharp mind gave him a rather dishonest answer, _I don't want her to be upset. She'll look like that pathetic human. I'd... I'd never be able to stop laughing._

"I'm going on ahead. Shield yourself." He told the oblivious mortal, and took wing.


	9. Chapter 9

Daine returned to the cloying warmth of the forest and stood quite still on the damp earth. She could feel it, even through her leather boots – the numb hardness of stones, the soft give of soil. It seemed more real than her feet, she thought, because she briefly held the earth in her mind by thinking about it, while the earth didn't have the slightest idea that she was the one who was standing there.

The indifference of the higher gods had surprised her far less than Rikash believed. When the Hag claimed her, she had been ordered to present Daine to them. Despite the imperious command the almighty beings had barely glanced at her. She remembered their eyes, though. They had glared at her, sharp and blue and gold and silver. Daine knew that if she had been mortal she would have crumbled into dust under those forbidding eyes.

The fire of love which had led them towards creation held an equal love for destruction, for cruelty and banality were just as much a part of their universe as the sweetness of incense. Their warnings were curt; their power pressed at her like a blaze of heat pouring from a kiln. Daine fell to her knees and swore to follow their divine laws until the stars burned away. The Hag prodded her cane into her back as if to make her bend even lower, but even she was cowed in the presence of these great ones. Her normal cackling laughter became a croaking subservient mutter. It was the first thing which made Daine smile in her immortal life, although when the Hag glared at her she quickly smoothed the expression away.

All of that seemed a distant memory, now. The brightness and perfumed stink of their glorious beauty had disappeared as soon as the Hag's clawed hand closed around her wrist, and for a year all she knew was the dry dust of desert winds and the cloying odour of bones and flesh. It seemed to last for an age, as she learned how to use her power in the abattoirs of a land where she could barely even understand the language. Daine thought it would never end; in a week she learned how time meant nothing to the gods, and in a month she lost the helpless sense that some chances were being stolen away from her. The rush of _purpose_ ebbed away, and she missed it. She wondered if the Tortallan ship had arrived home, and then she wondered how Kitten would be feeling, and then… and then the thoughts grew further apart, and more distant.

She had been gathering offerings for the Hag one day when a strange tickling feeling made her sneeze and scratch at her nose. Thinking that the dust from the dry old flower stems had caused it, she bent back to her task and then squealed in shock as something ran lightly across her neck. Spinning around and dropping the flowers, she clapped her hands together and then pulled them open, expecting to see a moth or a spider.

The lantern light struck her palms, but it wasn't an insect she held. It was downy and soft, like the dancing seedheads which children chased and called 'fairies' in Galla. Those seeds drifted on the breeze, but this one seemed to dance of its own accord. It was fragile, and beautiful, and when she let it go it lit on the end of her finger and basked against her skin, letting out a soft, warm light.

"It's a prayer." The Hag told her, appearing in her normal grouchy manner out of the shadows. "Don't think I didn't see you dropping my gifts, girl!"

"A prayer?" Daine shook her head and stared at the thing with wide eyes. "For me?"

"To you." The woman corrected, raising her nose at the seed. "Someone must have tried to talk to you."

"Who?" She shook her head, laughing. "No one knows about me! Do they want me to… to tidy up their altars, too?" A serious thought came to her, and she bit back her amusement to ask, "Do I have to answer it?"

"Well, that's your decision." The Hag sniffed. "If you want to waste your power on a pathetic little sprite like that, go ahead and follow it back to its mortal. Look at it." She reached out a bony finger and poked at the seedling, which darted away and danced mockingly along Daine's shoulder, out of reach of the wizened woman. "Oh, don't look so smug. You can't be more than two heartfelt words, and I bet they're just asking for money. Most of you buggers are."

"No, it feels more… vague." Daine tilted her head to one side, eyes shut as she concentrated, and then she shook her head and gave up. "I can't hear any words."

"Fix my flowers before you try again." The Hag was already hobbling away, crushing some stems underfoot. Daine nodded absently and, as soon as the goddess was gone, she finished the task in record time, trembling with excitement. So what if the flowers were crammed in to stale water, and some of the flower heads were upside down? The Hag liked things all turned about, didn't she?

She held the prayer gently between her hands and ran as fast as she could across the desert. She had found a secluded spot in the first few days, when every moment of her time seemed to be full of divine faces and rooms which reminded her of things she longed to forget. Mortals could not come here; travelling so many miles out in the desert without water would kill them. But Daine could cover many miles in one stride, and in the wind torn rocks she found a quiet peace which made their bare, breathless valleys seem almost homely.

The prayer illuminated the reddish rocks when she released it, and bobbed in the empty air until she settled down into a tailor's seat. When the girl beckoned the seed obediently skitted back, and rested comfortably into her nestled hands.

"Tell me," she murmured. The prayer trembled, but did not reply. Daine thought back to the Hag's words about following it, but shook her head. She was not allowed to leave Carthak; there was no was she could get permission to leave from such a small thing. There must be a way to answer it from here. Frowning, she rested her other hand on top of the seed and closed her eyes, trying to listen for the softest word.

The prayer pulsed gently in her palm, and as her hand tightened around it, the soft edges fluttered and she thought she heard a cry. Not a word, but a plea. Her heart pounding, she raised the prayer higher, thinking to hold it to her ear, but then changed her mind and pressed it to her heart instead.

"Let me help," She whispered, and the prayer blazed with sudden light. The clearing flared around her, and when her eyes cleared it looked different. She knew that she was still in the desert, but strange shadows now flickered around her. When she ran her hand through them they shimmered and felt solid, but soft, like wax under a candle flame. If she squinted at the shadows she could see details: a desk, a chair, a book with its pages half crumpled where it had fallen onto the ground. Only one thing was solid, and the prayer was fluttering around it like a worried mother hen.

She could feel the prayer, now, inside her own core like a rope tying her to this person. She felt the desperate hopelessness in the cry, and the wordless pain which pleaded for release. She was removed from it enough to still be curious, although the closer she stepped to the sleeping figure the more she had to fight back the urge to reach out and comfort it. She had to be detached, she told herself, remembering the stern lectures and the promises she had made to the higher gods. But when she looked down at the mortal she knew with a sinking feeling that it would be impossible.

Of course. He was the only person who would still call out for her. Even in his sleep, his desperation was too strong to go unheard. Daine clenched her hands into fists and wished she had smashed the prayer into the dust. Bitterly, she realised that the Hag had probably already known that it had been Numair calling out her name.

She was so glad to see him that it hurt, and yet she couldn't move. She felt frozen, embarrassed, as if she were intruding on his privacy. He hadn't really meant to summon her. He was calling out for the mortal Daine, not for some apprentice goddess who scrubbed rat droppings from shrines. All of the mystery and awe of the gods boiled down to the fact, Daine thought, that she was peeping on her friend in his bedroom.

He looked thin and tired, even beyond the usual haze of sleep. Frowning, the girl reached out, but stopped herself from touching his cheek. A tear welled up in her eye but she blinked it away.

"I wish you knew I was here," she whispered, and her voice faltered on the last note.

He twisted in his sleep, and his eyes moved wildly beneath the closed lids. "Daine," He groaned, his hands knotting into the sheets, "Daine, don't… don't…"

"You're just dreaming about me," She informed him, a little disappointed. She could see the silver cords of Ganiel's power holding him fast, keeping him trapped in his nightmare. Now that her shock at seeing Numair had faded she told herself that she must try to answer his prayer, whatever it might be. "What is it you want me to stop doing?"

"Don't… drink…" He gasped out, and then let out a strange defeated cry and rolled onto his side, drawing his legs up like a frightened child. Daine recoiled and shook her head.

"You're too late." She said, feeling sick. "You weren't there."

"I'm sorry," the man mumbled it into his pillow. "I'll try….'gain…"

"Again?" The girl pursed her lips and then raised her voice. "Do you mean you're dreaming about this every night?"

He was too deeply asleep to answer her, but Daine knew that she had found the right answer. Rounding about, she glared into the darkness for the shadow of the dream god, but couldn't see a trace of him. She thought about cutting through those silver threads, but when she reached for her belt knife her hand shook so badly that she cut herself. The rules of the gods weren't just for show; they were the iron laws of the universe. As much as she willed her hand to behave, it refused to commit to the task of undoing another god's purpose.

"Fine," She scowled and seized one of the strings. Rather than breaking it, she closed her eyes and searched her mind for something to feed into this leeching vine. She couldn't change it, but if she could change something, even something small, then maybe Numair would stop torturing himself with these nightmares.

"You're trying to stop me drinking it? But you weren't there." She repeated, almost snapping the words at him. "You can't pretend you were there and think that makes all of the guilt go away. I needed you." The more she spoke, the angrier she found that she was getting at the man. "All those years of coddling and you were fast asleep when I really needed you. Or maybe you were awake and with… with that woman! Feeling guilty, Numair? I should let you feel as bad as I do."

Her anger overflowed, and she realised that the silver string she was holding had turned black and was draining into her hands. When she let go, panting, the furious feeling faded. Numair groaned and shoved his pillow onto the floor.

"He's a stronger god than me. I can't fight that." Daine found that she was shaking violently. She hadn't meant to say those things, and now Numair looked worse than ever. She made a quick decision and summoned her magic. When she pressed her hand to his forehead she could feel the warm skin tingling under her palm. The sensation made her want to flinch away, but at the same time, the mortal contact made her long to lay down and wrap her arms around his back, to comfort him the way he had held her so many times.

"No, I won't make you feel bad." She murmured, and drew her hand back quickly. "But I've given you the truth of it. You'll know what really happened, at least. Maybe it wasn't as bad as what you've been thinking."

She rubbed her hand to get rid of the clammy feeling of mortality, and when she blinked and opened her eyes the shadows had gone, as had the fluttering prayer. It seemed that she had answered it, or at least done enough to dismiss it.

That was the first prayer which Daine answered, and out of all the strange pleas which she received, it was the only one that she felt dissatisfied with. The others were more simple, and she was able to find small ways to bring people comfort without having to wrestle with other gods, or choke back her own feelings. They always left her feeling empty and cold, and after she came back into the immortal realm she had to dig her toes into the dirt to feel normal again, but she answered as many as she could. By now it was such second nature to her that she didn't waste a second between receiving the fluttering, pathetic scraps of words and tracking down their mortal speakers.


	10. Chapter 10

"I don't think Rikash is coming back for a while," Numair said, instead of trying to invent a rather awkward greeting. Daine raised her eyebrows at him, and the man explained, "If he wasn't an immortal I would say that he was throwing a tantrum."

"He showed you how to watch me." The girl said simply, hunting the trail for the bow which she had dropped when she disappeared. A wan smile crossed her face as she crouched down and picked the long weapon out of a puddle. "I knew he would eventually, but he prob'ly thinks I'll hex him for it."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spy on you." He stumbled over the words, which he had practiced in his mind so often that they no longer made any sense. Daine considered him for a moment, and then wiped dirt from the bow onto the edge of her tunic and chewed her lip thoughtfully.

"Why do you think you're here?" She asked, finally. Numair blinked and opened his hands in a vague gesture.

"Ozorne is…"

"Oh, Ozorne." She said dismissively, and shook her head. "None of this is about that monster. The higher gods don't give a fig for Ozorne and his blustering. They're worried about Chaos."

"Then that's why I'm here." Numair shrugged and risked a smile. "Either way, killing Ozorne is a good start, right?"

"You make it sound so easy! He's possessed by a goddess whose magic can make loving mothers strangle their children in their sleep." Daine's voice was flat, but there was a harshness in it that made her raise her fingers to her lips as if she had misspoken. "How are you planning on beating that kind of power?"

He fell silent for a long time, and Daine beckoned for him to start walking down the trail again. Hoisting his bag onto his shoulder, the man thought about everything which had happened since daybreak. He hadn't really thought about himself so far; he had been amused by the idea of Daine being his patron goddess, but the actual meaning behind that connection hadn't meant very much. He had assumed that she was a shapeshifter goddess, or some kind of huntress, which made sense if they were on a divine mission to hunt down a mortal shapeshifter. It would fall within her power to summon somebody for that reason.

But now that he had spied on her and knew what kind of power she was responsible for, he found a small shred of fear beginning to squirm in his stomach. She hadn't been angry that he had spied on her. She had known that he was watching, but she hadn't asked him what he had seen. Her companion was a creature that danced through carrion, and her domain was as full of darkness and death as the Hag, who she answered to.

Rikash had nearly shouted it at him, hadn't he? She was the patron of the helpless. He had crowed the words in a voice which mixed mockery and pity. _She can only be with them, and comfort them, until it's all over._

She had wanted Numair to know that. She had wanted him to see.

"Daine," He choked, and in his confusion he stumbled on the uneven ground. When he righted himself and caught his breath he saw her watching him with level eyes. There was a darkness in her eyes which he didn't recognise. She could see that now, finally, he understood. She bit her lip and took half a step forwards, and then stopped short and wrapped her arms around her stomach.

"All we can do is keep fighting." She whispered, and her voice held a pleading hope which made him want to vomit. "They set this in motion because they needed a diversion, but maybe we really can kill him. Mortals can change the paths of the gods sometimes, if… if they…"

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, forcing the dancing pain away from his stomach and sinking his nails into his palms. She was the patron god of the helpless, and the gods had chosen her for a hopeless task. He had been brought here to fail. He had been brought here to die.

"They want you to succeed." Daine was saying, her voice harsh and tearful. "They say it's impossible but we all know that a mortal can challenge the fates. I know… I hoped…"

"Please," He gasped, and wrenched his head up to shake it wildly. "Daine, why did you have to choose me?"

"I didn't." She swallowed and took a step back, spreading her hands wide. "You did."

He looked up in horror, and saw that she wasn't lying. Her words were utterly incomprehensible to him. She steeled herself and took a step forwards, taking his shoulders and gently pushing him down to sit on the dusty ground. For the first time she didn't immediately take her hands away, but he could feel her fingers twitching even through the fabric as she fought off her dislike of human contact. Her voice was soft as she explained.

"You were the first person who called out for me. The only one who loved me. And I… I heard you. I answered. I'm so sorry."

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stared at the tears on his skin. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't." She shuddered and for a moment looked as nauseous as the man felt. "I knew you'd hate me for it. I couldn't bear it. I thought… if I made you hate me first, then maybe it wouldn't hurt you so much to think I'd…" she stopped talking abruptly and shook her head. Thick, cloying guilt ran through every word. "Knowing you're going to die is far worse than actually dying. I only had a few minutes of it. My poison will take weeks to kill you."

"Don't you dare." Numair rounded on her with sudden anger. "This is nothing like what he did to you."

She flinched and pulled away, putting on her habitual coldness like a winter cloak. "I meant to tell you when you had days left, not weeks. Rikash wasn't supposed to tell you anything until we got to the caves. I should have fused his wings together."

"Go on then. Go and find him!" The man said, still furious. "I'm sure he's just dying to know how this little scene played out. The only reason I know he's not hiding in the trees is because I know he'd be laughing himself sick right now. Go and tell him to go to Chaos, along with all your other friends!"

The girl scowled, and Numair found himself rooting on the ground for a clump of earth to throw at her, to break through that icy expression which seemed to mock him. He had condemned himself with the love he had felt for her, was that her story? He didn't believe it for a second. He blindly threw torn grass and mud until his hands bled, shouting at her to leave him alone, and when he raised his eyes to the trail she was gone.

Daine watched him bury his head in his hands through the veil of invisibility which she had cast. Her heart seemed to grow far too large for her chest, and she could hear it thudding in her ears. Surely he would be able to hear it! But for now, Numair's mind was firmly fixed on other things. She watched him for a few more minutes, making sure that there was nothing nearby that could hurt him, and then she shook the clods of dirt from her feet and made her silent way along the trail.

It was difficult to find Rikash, but not impossible. Unlike Numair, she had no link to the immortal that she could follow. Instead, she trusted in her years of trail craft and, when there were no broken branches to follow, she asked passing animal gods which way the stormwing had gone. They all answered with a different kind of disdain, pointing North or South or West with barely concealed loathing. Rikash had been loud, and had torn through flocks of birds and fragile nests as he had swept through the forest. Nobody had missed him. It was almost, the gods said snidely, as if he wanted someone to know where he was going.

Daine thanked them quietly and kept walking. She moved quickly, not because she wanted to see the immortal, but because every step made her aching heart close up a little more. She was sure that she wouldn't be able to stop herself from screaming if she didn't speak to somebody soon. Rikash was about as sympathetic as a rock, but at least he wouldn't throw things at her. The memory of Numair blindly lashing out made her throat ache, and she bit the back of her hand to stop herself from weeping.

Rikash was lounging in a clearing, taking the weight off his claws by laying back against a slanting rock. He took one look at her and his thin mouth split into a smile. "Looks like the little godling finally told the goat that he was going to be sacrificed!"

"You are such an ass!" Daine cried, and burst into tears. Running blindly across the clearing, she beat against the surprised immortal's chest with her fist and sobbed out every word, words like _hate_ and _idiot_ and _fault,_ until even they failed her and all she could do was cry. Burying her face into Rikash's shoulder, she wept until her chest hitched with painful sobs. It was only when she tried to push herself away that she felt a strange weight on her shoulders, and realised that the stormwing had wrapped both of his wings around her back and was holding her tightly. His feathers lay flat against her skin, but they held a living warmth which surprised her. She had imagined the harsh coldness of dead steel. The cool pressure was strangely comforting.

"I made a clean spot on your shoulder." She mumbled, suddenly feeling ashamed of her tears. He laughed, and she could hear the same odd embarrassed note in his voice. Clearing his throat, the stormwing made an obvious effort to return to his normal sardonic tone.

"I'll get fat if you keep wailing like that around me." He sniffed, making a show of it. "Although I've never had a taste for women's weeping."

"You could have pushed me away." She retorted, but her head hurt and there wasn't much energy in it. She raised her head a little and moved her hand away from his shoulder to gesture to his wing. "You could let me go."

"I could." He agreed, but he didn't move. Daine sighed and rested her forehead against his chest. For someone who didn't need to sleep, she felt exhausted. Being held so tightly felt far more comforting than all the soothing words her parents had used, even though she knew that Rikash was always less than two sentences away from a hurtful gibe.

"I'm sorry for hitting you." She said. "Did I hurt you?"

"Not with those feeble hands." He said, laughing snidely.

"Then why aren't you letting me go?"

"I don't like the taste of sorrow." He said in an arch tone. "I'm hoping for something better."

"I'm not going to panic. You can't hurt me, so I'm not scared. And you'll get bored long before I start feeling trapped." She said, surprised into laughing and looking up at him. He smiled and shook his head, and for a moment their eyes met. Daine was suddenly aware that she was held, not trapped, with her hands on his bare skin and his face just a few inches away.

If he had still been laughing she would have wriggled free, but in that moment she saw the same strange uncertainty in his eyes that she knew was written in her own. He hesitated and leaned a little closer, and for a brief racing heartbeat Daine found herself reaching up, before a shock of fear shivered through her body, and she drew back with a gasping breath.

Rikash let her go just as quickly, and when she staggered upright from the sudden sense of space she saw that he was smiling. It was a thin, shaky smile unlike his normal slanting grin, but in her confusion Daine thought that he was mocking her.

"Are you satisfied?" She demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

"Your face has gone red." He said acerbically. Then, pausing for a moment, he added, "Sometimes I choose not to taste things, you know."

"What a waste." Daine muttered. The stormwing nodded seriously, and then tilted his head to one side.

"I wonder if you know what that means, godling. I can smell your fear even when you try to hide it. I could taste any emotion. Humans hide how they feel from each other, but they could never fool a stormwing. We see through liars like they're made of ice."

"We're both liars." Daine said, folding her arms and thinking back to Numair with a shiver. Rikash glowered at her and shook his head. True to his words, he could tell what she was thinking just by the odd strands of emotion which perfumed the air around her. His stomach growled hungrily, but he sternly stopped himself from tasting a single scrap of that banquet. Just like her dejected tears, he let the flavours drift away in the breeze with gritted teeth.

"When you're around him you taste like honey. We were created to feast on fear, so bad emotions taste the sweetest. The gentler the feeling gets, the more bitter the taste." He moved closer, and leaned down a little so that he could look straight into her eyes. "When you're near me, you taste like salt."

Daine bit her lip and stared at the ground. "I've been crying." She said. "Humans cry salt tears, you fool."

He cawed with laughter and flapped his wings, ready to take flight. As he beat dust from the clearing his voice rose over the pulsing air. "Humans might, but you're as far from being human as I am!"

888


	11. Announcement!

Hi everyone! This is a little unconventional, and I apologise if it breaks any site rules.

If you like my fanfictions, check out my published novel _Hunting,_ which is now available on Amazon as an ebook and a paperback! . /Hunting-Vivien-Leanne-Saunders/dp/1981097503/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1526497587&sr=8-2&keywords=vivien+leanne

Some of you might recognise parts of it, as the story began as a fanfiction on this site. Thanks to your reviews and feedback, I rewrote it with my own characters, a vibrant new universe, and a lot of surprising plot twists! I couldn't have done it without you guys, so thank you for all of your feedback.

Remember that the reviews you write or read on anyone's work – whether they're a new writer or one of your all-time favourites – make a huge difference to the way they feel about their writing. I wouldn't have had the courage to publish without the feedback from this site.

Cheers all! – Sivvus


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